LYMAN    P 
ABBOTT  \ 


GIFT  OF         . 


^ 


SEEKING  AFTER  GOD 


BOOKS  BY  LYMAN  ABBOTT 


Seeking  after  God 

j2mo^  cloth.    By  maily  $i.io 


Christ*s  Secret  of  Happiness 

jzmo^  limp  leather.     By  maily  $i.^8 


The  Personality  of  God 
Salvation  from  Sin 
The  Soul's  Quest  after  God 
The  Supernatural 

Booklets,  "  What  is  Worth   While  "  Series 
i2mo,  white  leatherette.    By  mail,  ^^c.  each 


THOMAS  Y.  CROWELL   &  CO. 
New  York 


SEEKING  AFTER  GOD 


BY 


LYMAN   ABBOTT 

AxJTHOR  OF  **  Christ's  Secret  of  Happiness** 


*        0       J         >        > 


New  York 

THOMAS    Y.   CROWELL  ^  CO. 
PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,    1910, 
BY  THOMAS  Y.   CROWELL  &  CO. 

Published   September,  1910. 


V  <^^^-/-, 


i 


They  seek  the  Lord,  if  haply  they  might  feel  after 

him,  and  find  him,  though  he  be  not  far  from 

every  one  of  us  ;  for  in  him  we  live, 

and  move,  and  have  our  being 


303958 


PREFACE 

IN  an  interesting  essay  on  America  re- 
printed in  "  Litteirs  Living  Age  "  for 
February  12,  19 10,  G.  Lowe  Dickinson 
thus  characterizes  the  American  spirit : 

"  In  all  this  continent,  I  thought,  in  all 
the  western  world,  there  is  not  a  human 
soul  whose  will  seeks  any  peace  at  all,  least 
of  all  the  peace  of  God.  All  move,  but 
about  no  centre ;  they  move  on,  to  more 
power,  to  more  wealth,  to  more  motion. 
There  is  not  one  of  them  who  conceives 
that  he  has  a  place,  if  only  he  could  find 
it,  a  rank  and  order  fitted  to  his  nature, 
higher  than  some,  lower  than  others,  but 
right  and  the  only  right  for  him,  his  true 
position  in  the  cosmic  scheme,  his  ulti- 
mate relation  to  the  Power  whence  it 
proceeds." 

There  is  truth  in  this  description,  but 
the  description  is  not  the  whole  truth. 
[  vii  ] 


PREFACE 

There  are  a  great  many  Americans  whom 
this  paragraph  aptly  describes.  They  are 
seeking  satisfaction,  not  in  finding  their 
right  place,  but  in  finding  a  higher  or  what 
they  think  is  a  better  place.  But  it  is  not 
true  that  "  there  is  not  one  of  them  who 
conceives  that  he  has  a  place  fitted  to  his 
nature,  right  and  the  only  right  for  him.*' 
If  this  were  true  there  would  be  no  re- 
ligion in  America ;  for  religion  consists  in 
seeking  to  find  our  true  relation  to  God 
the  centre  of  life,  and  so  to  our  fellow-men. 
The  object  of  this  book  is  to  help  those 
who  are,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
seeking  for  this  centre  and  for  their 
own  true  orbit  and  place,  and  so  for 
peace,  —  the  peace  of  God  that  passeth 
all  understanding. 

The  chapters  of  this  book  were  origi- 
nally delivered  as  addresses  at  different 
times  and  without  any  purposed  relation 
to  each  other.  They  are  here  brought 
together  because  a  common  theme  con- 
nects them  and  a  common  spirit  animates 
them.  Their  independent  origin  accounts 
for  some  repetitions,  of  thought  if  not  of 
[  viii  ] 


PREFACE 

form,  which,  if  they  had  been  originally 
written  for  publication  in  book  form, 
would  probably  have  been  avoided. 

Lyman  Abbott, 

Cornwall  on  Hudson,  N.Y. 
March,  1910. 


[  «  ] 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.    THE  soul's  quest  AFTER  GOD     ...  I 

II.    GOD  IN  NATURE 39 

III.    GOD  IN  HUMANITY 89 

IV.    GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST II3 

V.    GOD  A  SAVIOUR  FROM  SIN        .       ,       .       .  I27 


THE  SOUL'S   QUEST  AFTER 
GOD 


THE  SOUL'S  QUEST  AFTER 
GOD^ 

THE  experience  of  personal  commun- 
ion with  God  is  as  universal  as  the 
human  race.  Appreciation  of  the  divine 
presence  is  more  common  than  apprecia- 
tion of  art,  music,  or  literature.  Men 
and  women  who  do  not  respond  to  music, 
see  no  beauty  in  pictures,  never  read,  and 
could  not  understand  literature  if  it  were 
read  to  them,  yet  find  comfort  in  sorrow, 
strength  in  temptation,  courage  in  danger, 
and  added  joy  in  their  enjoyments  from 
the  sense  of  a  Father's  presence.  In  all 
climates  and  countries,  among  all  races 
and  in  all  epochs,  under  all  creeds  and 
theologies,  this  experience  of  communion 
with  the  Eternal  is  seen.  He  is  addressed 
by  many  names,  many  and  inconsistent 
conceptions  of  him  are  formed;  the  lan- 

1  Copyright,  1897,  by  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Co. 

[3] 


■        THE  'SGl^'LS    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

guage  is  sometimes  that  of  dread,  some- 
times that  of  reverence,  sometimes  that  of 
hope  and  trust  and  love.  But  whatever 
the  language,  whatever  the  phase  of  ex- 
perience, faith  in  the  reality  of  the  fellow- 
ship inspires  the  prayer.  To  believe  that 
there  is  no  fellowship  is  to  disbelieve  in 
the  trustworthiness  of  a  substantially  uni- 
versal though  multiform  human  con- 
sciousness. To  deny  the  reality  of  such 
fellowship  is  to  deny  the  common  witness 
of  mankind  in  all  ages  and  of  all  types. 

This  little  book  assumes  the  trust- 
worthiness of  universal  human  experience. 
It  assumes  that  God  is,  and  that  some 
men  have  communion  with  him.  It  is 
addressed  to  those  who  believe,  or  wish 
to  believe,  in  God,  who  believe,  or  wish 
to  believe,  that  the  soul  of  man  can  have 
communion  with  him,  but  who  either 
have  no  such  communion  themselves,  or 
in  whose  experience  it  is  so  broken,  inter- 
rupted, and  desultory  as  to  leave  them 
a  prey  to  doubts  whether  it  is  a  reality 
or  a  fantasy.  This  book  is  not  written  to 
prove  either  that  God  is,  or  that  the  soul 
[4] 


THE    SOUL  S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

can  hold  communion  with  him.  It  is 
written  to  aid  those  who  see,  and  desire  to 
see  more  clearly ;  or  who  have  seen,  and 
desire  to  renew  their  sight ;  or  who  have 
heard  the  testimony  of  those  who  see,  and 
wish  to  believe  that  testimony  true,  and 
to  enjoy  a  similar  vision.  It  assumes  in 
the  reader  a  desire  to  know  God,  or  to 
know  him  better;  a  desire  like  that  of 
Abraham  when  he  followed  a  mystic  voice 
which  called  him  out  of  the  land  of  idolatry 
to  find  God  in  a  strange  land  he  knew 
nothing  of;  like  that  of  Moses  when  in 
the  wilderness  he  cried  out,  "  I  beseech 
thee,  show  me  thy  glory  ; "  like  that  of 
Job  when  in  his  darkness,  tortured  by  the 
injustice  of  his  friends,  the  unfaith  of  his 
wife,  and  his  own  doubts,  he  cried  out, 
"Oh,  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find 
him,  that  I  might  come  even  to  his  seat ;" 
like  that  of  Elijah  when  in  despair  he 
looked  upon  the  fire,  tempest,  and  earth- 
quake at  Mount  Horeb,  and  so  was  pre- 
pared to  hear  the  still,  small  voice  within  -, 
like  that  of  Philip  saying  to  the  Master, 
"Show   us   the   Father,  and  it   sufficeth 

[5] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

US ; "  like  that  of  the  Athenians  erecting 
an  altar  to  the  unknown  God,  because  all 
idols,  temples,  and  priests  had  failed  to 
satisfy  their  quest ;  like  that  of  Paul  when 
life  and  death,  principalities  and  powers, 
things  present  and  things  to  come,  had 
vainly  endeavored  to  turn  him  aside,  and 
who  in  his  finding  of  God's  love  declared 
himself  victor  over  them  all.  For  such, 
by  one  who  seeks  to  clarify  and  confirm 
his  own  faith  as  well  as  that  of  others,  this 
book  is  written  to  point  out,  first,  some  of 
the  hindrances  to  be  overcome ;  second, 
some  of  the  aids  which  promote  success 
in  the  soul's  quest  after  God. 

I.   HINDRANCES 

If  the  consciousness  of  God  is  possible 
to  all  healthful  souls,  why  are  so  many 
men  and  women  without  this  conscious- 
ness ?  There  are  men  and  women,  not 
a  few,  who  do  not  want  God.  They 
would  be  very  glad  to  have  God  if  he 
were  always  on  their  side ;  glad  to  have 
God  if  he  would  always  do  what  they 
want  him  to  do.  But  a  supreme  will, 
[6] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

a  masterful  will,  a  will  to  which  they  must 
conform,  they  do  not  want.  They  do 
not  like  to  retain  God  in  their  knowledge, 
says  Paul ;  they  put  God  far  from  them, 
says  the  Psalmist.  The  same  spirit  of 
anarchism  which  leads  some  men  to  de- 
sire to  be  rid  of  human  law  leads  other 
men  to  desire  to  be  rid  of  divine  law. 
Not  long  ago  a  body  of  anarchists  in 
Chicago  passed  a  resolution  saying  in 
effect,  and  very  nearly  in  words,  "  We 
have  no  use  for  God/'  So  Bakunin,  the 
Russian  anarchist,  says  substantially,  "  We 
want  no  laws,  either  human  or  divine." 
The  first  question  of  the  soul,  then,  must 
be  this.  Do  I  really  want  God  to  rule 
over  me  ?  Do  I  want  a  supreme  will  in 
the  universe,  to  which  my  will  must  in 
every  respect  be  conformed  ?  Do  I  want 
a  will  superior  to  my  own,  in  the  shop, 
in  the  factory,  in  society,  at  the  ballot-box, 
in  the  home  ? 

There  are  many  men,  and  a  large 
number,  who,  though  they  do  not  wish  to 
be  rid  of  God,  do  not  very  much  care  to 
have    him.     They    are    not   opposed    to 

[7] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

God ;  but  neither  are  they  anxious  about 
knowing  him.  The  Psalmist  speaks  of 
these  when  he  says,  "  God  is  not  in  all 
their  thoughts."  There  are  thousands  of 
men  and  women  of  whom  that  is  true. 
They  live  their  lives  without  thought  of 
God.  Sometimes  God  is  forced  into  their 
thoughts  by  his  providence  ;  sometimes 
he  is  flashed  before  their  thoughts  by  a 
sermon  or  a  book ;  but,  for  the  most 
part,  they  are  living  with  thoughts  fixed 
on  other  things.  The  kingdom  they  are 
working  for  is  not  the  kingdom  of  God ; 
the  name  they  are  hallowing  is  not  the 
name  of  God ;  the  will  they  are  trying  to 
do  is  not  the  will  of  God.  They  are 
busy  about  other  things.  One  man  is 
busy  after  his  wealth  —  he  is  a  honey- 
gatherer;  another  after  his  pleasure;  an- 
other after  his  fame ;  another  about  nothing 
—  and  he  is  busiest  of  all.  But  neither  is 
taken  up  with  God.  They  do  not  know 
what  is  the  meaning  of  the  experience, 
"As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water 
brooks,  so  panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  O 
God."  They  are  not  eager  to  know  God  ; 
[8] 


.      THE    SOUL  S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

they  are  not  anxious  to  be  friends  with 
him.  They  lie  awake  at  night  over  busi- 
ness anxieties,  over  earthly  disappoint- 
ments, over  the  sundering  of  human  friend- 
ships ;  but  they  never  lie  awake  at  night 
over  the  absence  of  God.  That  ploughs 
no  furrow  on  the  brow,  traces  no  line  in 
the  cheek,  brings  no  gray  hair  to  the  head. 
On  the  whole,  they  are  well  satisfied  with- 
out God. 

Nor  are  these  men  all  sensual  self- 
seekers.  Some  of  them  are  what  we  call 
good  men,  followers  after  truth,  practiscrs 
of  righteousness.  But  the  invisible  and 
the  eternal  world  does  not  attract  them ; 
their  thoughts  do  not  run  in  that  direc- 
tion. The  spiritual  vision  may  be  lost  by 
non-use,  as  any  other  faculty  may  be  lost. 
They  who  have  not  looked  for  anything 
back  of  phenomena,  who  have  only  been 
searching  the  phenomena,  and  ticketing  and 
classifying  them,  will  find  only  what  they 
look  for.  Such  men  sometimes  feel  the 
sadness  and  the  loneliness  of  a  Godless 
life ;  sometimes  the  question  arises  in 
their  hearts  whether  it  is  worth  while  to 

[9] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

know  the  stars,  the  flowers,  the  rocks,  the 
trees,  the  bones,  the  arteries,  if  there  is  no 
Spirit  behind  them  all,  no  God  in  them  all, 
no  love  using  them  all.  Says  one  of  these 
men.  Professor  Clifford  of  England  :  — 

"  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  theistic  belief  is  a 
comfort  and  a  solace  to  those  who  hold  it,  and 
that  the  loss  of  it  is  a  very  painful  loss.  It 
cannot  be  doubted,  at  least,  by  many  of  us  in 
this  generation,  who  either  profess  it  now,  or 
received  it  in  our  childhood,  and  have  parted 
from  it  since  with  such  searching  trouble  as  only 
cradle-faiths  can  cause.  We  have  seen  the 
spring  sun  shine  out  of  an  empty  heaven,  to 
light  up  a  soulless  earth  ;  we  have  felt  with 
utter  loneliness  that  the  Great  Companion  is 
dead.  Our  children,  it  may  be  hoped,  will 
know  that  sorrow  only  by  the  reflex  light  of  a 
wondering  compassion."  ^ 

Heartrending  is  this  testimony  of  a 
truly  noble,  genuine,  pure-minded  man 
to  the  loss  of  the  capacity  to  perceive  the 
Infinite  in  the  finite,  the  Divine  behind  the 
human,  the  Invisible  behind  the  visible. 

*  W.  K.  Clifford's  Lectures  and  Essays,  p.  389. 

[  10] 


THE    SOUL  S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

Sometimes  this  voluntary  blindness,  this 
having  eyes  and  seeing  not,  and  having 
ears  and  hearing  not,  is  formulated  into  a 
philosophy.  The  man  who  has  lost  the 
power  of  vision  declares  that  there  is  no 
vision ;  the  man  who  has  lost  the  power 
of  hearing  declares  that  there  is  no  hear- 
ing ;  the  man  whose  heart  does  not  throb 
to  the  pulsation  of  music  says  that  there 
is  no  music ;  the  man  whose  eyes  see  no 
beauty  in  a  picture  declares  there  is  no 
art ;  the  man  who  has  lost,  from  non-use, 
the  capacity  to  perceive  and  'recognize  the 
Divine  and  the  Infinite  declares  that  there 
is  not  in  man  the  capacity  to  perceive  the 
Divine  and  the  Infinite.  "Truly,"  says 
Mr.  Huxley,  speaking  of  religious  faith, 
"  on  this  topic  silence  is  golden  ;  while 
speech  reaches  not  even  the  dignity  of 
sounding  brass  or  tinkling  cymbal,  and  is 
but  the  weary  clatter  of  an  endless  logom- 
achy."^ That  is  the  philosophy  of  non- 
use  of  faculty  coined  into  a  system.  The 
adequate  answer  to  it  is  furnished  by 
Victor  Hugo:  — 

^  Essay  on  Hume,  p.  183. 

[  II  ] 


THE  SOUL  S  QUEST  AFTER  GOD 

"  There  is,  we  are  aware,  a  philosophy  that 
denies  the  infinite.  There  is  also  a  philosophy, 
classed  pathologically,  which  denies  the  sun  j 
this  philosophy  is  called  blindness.  To  set  up 
a  sense  we  lack  as  a  source  of  truth,  is  a  fine 
piece  of  blind  man's  assurance.  And  the  rarity 
of  it  consists  in  the  haughty  air  of  superiority 
and  compassion  which  is  assumed  towards  the 
philosophy  that  sees  God,  by  this  philosophy 
that  has  to  grope  its  way.  It  makes  one  think 
of  a  mole  exclaiming:  'How  they  excite  my 
pity  with  their  prate  about  a  sun  !  "M 

This  loss  of  vision  from  non-use,  this 
atrophy  of  the  spiritual  faculty,  is  a  very 
common  hindrance  to  the  perception  of 
God  in  our  materialistic  and  scientific  age. 
For  the  man  who  does  not  want  God  of 
course  will  not  find  him ;  and  the  man 
who  is  busy  searching  for  something  else 
will  not  find  God ;  and  certainly  the  man 
who  has  coined  the  atrophy  of  faculty  into 
a  philosophy  that  the  Eternal  and  the  In- 

1  Les  Miser ablesy  "Cosette/"  p.  133. — Victor  Hugo. 
Curiously,  Mr.  Huxley  uses  the  same  simile,  though  he 
applies  It  only  to  men  who  do  not  see  ethical  laws,  not  to 
men  who  do  not  see  the  Invisible  spirit  in  nature  or  in  man. 
See  his  Humef  pp.  239,  240. 

[  12] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

visible  cannot  be  seen  or  known,  cannot 
see  or  know. 

Besides  these,  are  many  men  who  be- 
lieve that  there  is  a  God,  and  yet  live 
without  any  companionship  with  God,  be- 
cause they  have  taken  in  place  of  God 
what  is  divinely  intended  only  to  bring 
them  to  him.  We  think  that  we  have 
gotten  rid  of  idolatry  because  we  no  longer 
worship  painted  or  carved  images,  as 
though  these  were  the  only  idols.  Men 
at  first  use  a  symbol  as  a  means  of  enabling 
them  to  apprehend  the  reality,  and  then 
stop  with  the  symbol,  and  accept  it  in  lieu 
of  the  reality.  The  image  is  put  up  as  a 
means  of  interpreting  God  to  men ;  then 
men  content  themselves  with  the  image, 
and  leave  God  unknown.  Is  there  noth- 
ing analogous  to  that  in  Christian  experi- 
ence ?  In  the  same  way,  one  generation 
has  constructed  a  creed,  and  another  gen- 
eration has  substituted  belief  in  the  creed 
for  a  living  faith  in  a  living  God.  Belief 
in  the  Apostle's  Creed,  in  the  Nicene 
Creed,  in  the  Westminster  Confession  of 
Faith,  in  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles,  has 
[  13] 


THE    SOUL  S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

taken  the  place  of  faith  in  God  and  in  his 
Son  Jesus  Christ.  Other  men  have  gone 
behind  the  creed,  and  said,  "  We  believe 
in  the  church  which  made  the  creed ; "  or 
behind  the  church  to  the  Bible,  and  said, 
"  We  are  not  sure  whether  we  believe  in 
the  creed,  we  are  not  quite  sure  whether 
we  believe  in  the  church ;  but  one  thing 
we  do  know,  we  believe  in  "  —  what  ? 
God  ?  No  —  "  we  believe  in  the  Bible  ; " 
and  they  stop  there.  Some  men  are  con- 
tent with  the  creed  ;  other  men  are  content 
with  the  church ;  other  men  are  content 
with  the  Book.  But  in  either  case  they 
stop  at  the  eidolon,  —  the  image,  the  sym- 
bol. So  long  as  the  creed  is  a  window, 
and  we  see  God  through  it,  it  is  good ;  so 
long  as  the  church  is  a  voice,  and  we  hear 
it  saying,  "  Come  to  God,'*  it  is  good ;  so 
long  as  the  Bible  is  a  collection  of  voices, 
every  one  saying,  "  God  tabernacles  among 
men,"  and  we  look  in  our  own  heart  and 
find  God  there,  it  is  good.  But  when  men 
are  content  simply  to  believe  in  the  creed, 
or  in  the  church,  or  in  the  Bible,  they  are 
worshipping  idols.  It  is  not  the  Bible,  it 
[  H] 


THE    SOUL*S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

IS  not  the  church,  it  is  not  the  creed ;  it  is 
God  —  the  living  God,  who  spake  in  the 
hearts  of  men  of  olden  time.  Why  ?  In 
order  that  we  might  hear  the  same  voice 
speaking  in  our  hearts  to-day.  But  when 
men  stop  with  the  eidolon,  God  slips  out 
of  their  thought.  Gideon  destroys  the 
idol  that  has  been  erected  to  the  worship 
of  Baal,  and  puts  up  an  altar  without  any 
idol,  that  he  may  worship  the  spirit  of  Je- 
hovah. The  people  think  him  irreligious, 
and  would  at  first  kill  him.  It  has  always 
been  so.  This  process  of  idol  destruction 
has  gone  on  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  and 
will  go  on  until  God  has  taught  us  that 
only  God  can  satisfy,  —  not  a  testimony 
about  God,  not  a  report  of  God,  not  wit- 
nesses to  God,  not  a  belief  concerning 
God,  but  only  God  himself,  can  satisfy. 
The  creed  has  been  allowed  to  take  the 
place  of  the  living  God;  then  prophets 
have  arisen  to  attack  the  creed;  and  or- 
thodoxy has  thought  faith  was  being  de- 
stroyed, and  has  come  to  its  rescue.  But, 
in  reality,  a  mere  symbol  of  faith  was  being 
destroyed,  that  faith  might  be  born  again. 

[15] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

Then  the  church  has  been  allowed  to  take 
the  place  of  the  living  God ;  and  again 
prophets  have  arisen  to  attack  the  church  ; 
and  again  orthodoxy  has  thought  faith  was 
being  destroyed,  and  has  come  to  its  res- 
cue. But,  in  fact,  only  the  idol  was  being 
destroyed,  that  faith,  a  living  faith  in  a 
living  God,  might  rise  again  from  the  tomb 
in  which  it  was  buried.  Then  gradually 
an  infallible  Book  has  been  substituted  for 
an  infallible  church  ;  and  belief  in  an  in- 
fallible Book  has  been  made  to  take  the 
place  of  faith  in  a  living  God.  And  again 
prophets  have  arisen  with  their  message 
that  belief  in  the  Book  is  no  substitute 
for  a  living  faith  in  a  living  God  ;  that  the 
Book  is  but  the  testimony  of  fallible  men 
to  the  living  God.  And  again  we  en- 
counter the  fear  that  faith  is  being  de- 
stroyed. It  is  the  substitution  of  a  Book 
for  the  living  God  which  is  being  destroyed. 
We  are  learning  that  we  must  look,  not  to 
the  creed,  but  through  the  creed  ;  not  to 
the  church,  but  through  the  church ;  and 
not  even  to  the  Bible,  but  through  the  Bible, 
to  the  living  God,  or  we  cannot  see  God. 
[  i6] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

Men  fail  to  find  God  because  they  cu- 
riously reverse  the  position  —  the  natural, 
legitimate,  rightful  position  —  between  the 
soul  and  God.  There  is  a  word  common 
in  theology,  though  not  very  familiar  in 
ordinary  intercourse,  —  theodicy,  which 
means  justifying  the  ways  of  God  to  man. 
When  a  man  begins  to  justify  the  ways  of 
God  to  man,  he  has  entered  on  a  very 
dangerous  process.  For  example,  it  is 
said,  "  If  there  is  a  God,  he  must  be  om- 
nipotent and  omniscient ;  and  an  omnip- 
otent and  omniscient  God  could  and  would 
make  a  world  without  sin  and  without 
suffering;  but  the  world  is  not  without 
sin  nor  without  suffering,  therefore  there 
is  no  God."  Such  a  man  frames  in  his 
own  mind  his  notion  of  what  a  God  must 
be,  and  then  brings  God  himself  to  that 
standard,  and  measures  him  by  it.  The- 
odicy !  Justifying  the  ways  of  God  to 
man!  Sit,  my  soul,  on  the  judgment 
throne,  and  summon  God  to  stand  before 
thee.  "  Now,  Almighty  One,  I  will  see 
whether  thou  art  righteous.  Why  didst 
thou  allow  famine  in  India  ?  What  right 
[  17] 


THE    SOUL  S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

hast  thou  to  allow  a  deluge  in  Japan? 
What  right  hast  thou  to  allow  man  to  go 
to  war  with  his  fellow-man  in  Europe? 
Justify  thyself;  explain  thyself;  answer 
for  thyself."  No  man  will  ever  find  his 
way  to  the  heart  of  God  in  that  spirit. 

Men  who  do  want  God,  who  are  really 
in  earnest  to  find  God,  who  do  not  live  in 
the  outward  world  altogether,  but  have 
some  vision  of  the  inner,  who  do  not  stop 
at  the  creed  or  the  church  or  the  Book, 
who  do  not  call  God  to  an  account  for  the 
way  in  which  he  conducts  himself,  still  fail 
to  find  God  because  they  want  God  only 
for  what  God  will  bring  to  them.  This  is 
the  most  common  cause  of  failing  to  find 
God  in  the  spiritual  experience  of  men  and 
women.  They  do  not  want  God  for  him- 
self. They  want  him  for  something  he  is 
going  to  bring  them.  "  I  want  peace," 
one  cries,  "and  so  I  want  God."  "I 
want  prosperity,"  another  cries,  "  and  so 
I  want  God."  "  I  want  joy,"  cries  another, 
"  and  therefore  I  want  God."  What  man 
can  find  his  way  to  the  heart  of  a  woman 
if  he  wants  her  for  the  fortune  she  will 
[  i8  ] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

bring?  Whether  it  be  fortune  of  houses 
and  lots,  or  fortune  of  pleasures  and  joys, 
if  all  his  love  for  her  is  only  the  reflex  of 
love  for  himself,  he  will  never  find  her. 
She  may  marry  him  ;  he  may  have  her  for 
a  wife ;  but  he  will  never  know  her.  So 
God  will  be  loved  for  his  own  sake.  The 
fortune-hunter  never  finds  him.  We  think 
we  want  God.  Do  we  ?  If  God  brings 
tears,  humiliation,  poverty,  do  we  want 
him  ?  Or  do  we  want  peace  and  joy  and 
prosperity  ?  Our  question  must  be,  not. 
Can  I  have  God's  help  in  my  business, 
but.  Can  God  have  my  help  in  his  busi- 
ness ?  Not  whether  we  can  get  God  on 
our  side,  but  whether  we  are  willing  to  be 
on  God's  side.  Do  we  want  God  for  his 
own  sake  ?  It  is  true  that  wisdom  has 
wealth  in  the  one  hand  and  pleasure  in  the 
other,  that  her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasant- 
ness, her  paths  are  paths  of  peace  ;  but  she 
will  never  come  to  one  who  follows  her 
for  the  sake  of  the  wealth  in  the  one  hand 
or  the  pleasure  in  the  other.  No  man 
will  find  God  unless  he  seeks  after  God 
for  God's  own  sake,  loves  him  for  him- 
[  '9] 


THE    SOUL  S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

self,  and  not  for  the  gifts  which  he  may 
bestow. 

Devout  seekers  after  God  are  not  infre- 
quently separated  from  him  by  sorrow. 
It  is  said  that  sorrow  brings  one  to  God. 
So  it  sometimes  does.  But  it  sometimes 
estranges  from  God.  Great  sorrow  often 
makes  it  seem  for  the  time  as  though  life 
were  unjust,  andT  there  were  no  God  ruling 
in  the  universe.  This  is  a  very  common 
experience.  It  was  the  experience  of  Job 
in  his  distress,  of  the  Psalmist  in  his  exile, 
of  Paul  in  his  struggle  with  life  and  death, 
and  principalities  and  powers,  and  things 
present  and  things  to  come.  It  was  in 
the  experience  of  the  Master  himself  when 
he  cried,  "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast 
thou  forsaken  me  ?  "  If  when  we  look 
out  upon  life  and  see  its  travail  of  pain, 
or  when  the  anguish  of  life  enters  our  own 
soul  and  embitters  it,  the  sun  sometimes 
seems  blotted  out  of  the  heavens,  and  God 
seems  gone,  we  are  not  to  chide  ourselves  ; 
we  are  to  remember  that  our  experience  of 
temporary  oblivion  of  the  Almighty  is 
an  experience   which  the    devout   in    all 

[20] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

ages  have  known.  Wait  thou  his  time. 
Blessed  is  he  who  in  such  an  hour  of  sor- 
row, when  it  seems  as  though  God  were 
departing,  still  holds  to  him,  and  cries, 
"  My  God  !  my  God  !  " 

Finally,  God  is  infinite  and  we  are  finite ; 
and,  at  the  best,  wc  can  only  know  him 
a  very  little.  Many  young  people  make 
a  mistake  in  this  respect.  They  read 
the  story  of  devout  souls  in  the  Psalms, 
or  in  biographies  in  the  Bible  or  in 
other  literature,  and  say,  "  I  have  no 
such  experience  as  that;  I  cannot  be  a 
Christian."  It  takes  time  to  grow,  and 
the  power  of  seeing  God  is  a  power  that 
must  grow  like  any  other  power.  We 
cannot  expect  at  fifteen  all  that  we  may 
have  at  fifty ;  nor  at  fifty  all  that  we  may 
have  in  the  glory  of  the  future.  One  of 
the  best  educated,  one  of  the  most  spirit- 
ually developed,  one  of  the  richest  natures 
that  God  has  ever  given  to  the  world,  said 
of  himself,  "  We  see  in  part,  and  we 
prophesy  in  part,"  and  "we  see  in  a  glass 
darkly."  If  you  do  not  care  for  God,  if 
you  think  you  can  get  along  without  him, 

[21    ] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

if  you  are  satisfied  to  live  as  you  are,  then 
you  may  very  well  question  whether  you 
are  living  at  all.  If  you  think  you  have 
all  of  God  you  need,  if  you  are  satisfied 
with  your  vision  of  God,  if  you  have  all 
the  experience  that  your  heart  craves,  then 
you  may  doubt  whether  you  are  really 
living.  But  if  you  know  what  it  is  to  cry, 
"  As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water 
brooks,  so  my  soul  panteth  after  thee,  O 
God  !  "  if  you  know  what  it  is  to  cry, "  Oh, 
that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  him  ! "  if 
every  glimpse  of  God  makes  you  long  for 
a  better  vision,  and  every  imperfect  and 
tardy  acquiescence  in  God's  will  makes  you 
long  for  the  time  when  you  will  do  his  will 
on  earth  as  the  angels  do  it  in  heaven, 
— "  Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and 
thirst  after  righteousness,  for  they  shall  be 
filled."  I  cannot  take  all  the  sunlight; 
but  shall  I  not  bask  in  what  sunlight  I 
can  get  on  a  spring  morning  ?  I  cannot 
breathe  all  the  oxygen ;  but  shall  I  not 
stand  at  the  open  window,  and  take  great 
draughts  of  oxygen,  as  much  as  my  lungs 
will   hold?     I   cannot    see  all    the  floral 

[22] 


THE    SOUL  S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

beauty  of  this  beautiful  world ;  but  shall 
I  not  look  at  this  bunch  of  lilies,  and  en- 
joy them  ?  I  cannot  take  in  all  of  God ; 
shall  I  not  walk  in  such  light  as  he  gives, 
breathe  in  such  breath  of  life  as  he  im- 
parts, rejoice  in  such  beauty  of  love  as  he 
affords  ? 

Look  at  these  etchings  as  they  stand, 
my  reader,  and  ask  yourself  the  question. 
Is  your  portrait  here  ?  Do  you  really 
want  God?  or  would  you  rather  be  glad 
to  know  there  is  no  will  superior  to  your 
own  ?  Do  you  want  him  above  everything 
else,  so  that  no  wealth,  nor  power,  nor 
fame  counts  in  comparison  with  the  desire 
for  God  ?  Do  you  want  God,  and  not  an 
intellectual  opinion  about  him,  or  a  testi- 
mony to  him,  or  a  church  service  of  adora- 
tion of  him,  or  even  a  Book  written  con- 
cerning him  ?  Do  you  want  God  for  his 
own  sake,  and  not  for  the  happiness  you 
think  he  will  bring  you  either  here  or  here- 
after? Do  you  want  him  as  your  com- 
forter in  sorrow,  your  strength  in  tempta- 
tion, your  guide  in  perplexity,  your  life, 
your  all  and  in  all  ?     If  you  do  not,  the 

[  23  ] 


THE    SOUL*S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

second  part  of  this  little  book  is  not  for 
you.  If  you  do,  then  will  I  try  to  tell 
you,  as  well  as  a  half-healed  blind  man 
can  tell  other  half-healed  blind  men,  how 
we  can  see  something  of  God. 

II.    HELPS 

We  can  form  the  habit  of  looking  for 
God  in  nature. 

It  is  only  a  very  superficial  acquaintance 
with  scientific  thought  which  leads  to  the 
idea  that  there  is  no  God  in  nature.  The 
old  argument  from  designs  has  given  place 
to  the  modern  argument  from  design. 
The  evidence  of  personal  skill  in  nature 
is  by  no  man  more  strikingly  witnessed  to 
than  by  such  representatives  of  modern 
scientific  exploration  as  Darwin,  Tyndall, 
and  Huxley.  Read  in  Darwin's  Life  and 
Letters  his  recognition  of  infinite  design 
in  the  great  fabric  of  creation ;  or  Hux- 
ley's wonderfully  graphic  description  in 
his  essay  on  "  The  Origin  of  the  Species  *'  ^ 
of   the    development   of   some  common 

1  Lay  Sermons f  Addresses,  and  Re'vie^s,  p.  260. 

[24] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

animal  such  as  a  salamander  or  a  newt 
from  its  egg,  and  his  conclusion :  "  After 
watching  the  process  hour  by  hour,  one  is 
almost  involuntarily  possessed  by  the  no- 
tion, that  some  more  subtle  aid  to  vision 
than  an  achromatic  would  show  the  hidden 
artist,  with  his  plan  before  him,  striving 
with  skilful  manipulation  to  perfect  his 
work."  Or  read  Professor  TyndalFs  ^  tes- 
timony to  his  own  experience  :  "  I  have 
noticed  during  years  of  self-observation 
that  it  is  not  in  hours  of  clearness  and 
vigor  that  this  doctrine  [of  material  athe- 
ism] commends  itself  to  my  mind;  that 
in  the  presence  of  stronger  and  healthier 
thought  it  ever  dissolves  and  disappears, 
as  offering  no  solution  of  the  mystery  in 
which  we  dwell,  and  of  which  we  form  a 
part/*  He  who  does  not  care  to  find  God 
will  not  have  God  forced  upon  his  atten- 
tion by  nature.  But  he  who  does,  may 
learn  to  discern  the  infinite  wisdom  mani- 
festing itself  in  all  natural  phenomena. 
"  There    are,"    says    James    Martineau,^ 

^  Fragments  of  Science y  vol.  ii.  p.  204. 
2  A  Study  of  Religion y  vol.  i.  p.  336. 

[25] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

"  but  three  forms  under  which  it  is  possi- 
ble to  think  of  the  ultimate  or  immanent 
principle  of  the  universe,  —  Mind,  Life, 
Matter :  given  the  first,  it  is  intellectually 
thought  out :  the  second,  it  blindly  grows  : 
the  third,  it  mechanically  shuffles  into 
equilibrium."  Whatever  intellectual,  or 
even  moral,  difficulties  one  may  find  in- 
volved in  a  theistic  conception  of  the 
universe,  however  unsatisfactory  the  old 
mechanical  conception  of  creation,  and  the 
old  semi-idolatrous  conception  of  God  as 
a  gigantic  man,  fulfilling  the  part  now  of 
mechanic  and  now  of  engineer,  no  thought- 
ful student  of  nature  can  hesitate  between 
these  alternatives :  it  is  clear  that  nature 
has  been  thought  out.  The  object  of 
science  is,  or  ought  to  be,  not  merely  to 
describe  phenomena,  and  to  label  and  as- 
sort them,  but  to  perceive  their  intellec- 
tual relations ;  and  that  is  to  perceive  the 
Infinite  Intellect  which  has  prearranged 
them,  and  is  revealed  in  and  by  them. 
Science  thinks  the  thoughts  of  God  after 
him.  It  is  possible  to  form  the  habit  of 
looking  for  evidences  of  wisdom,  skill, 
[  26  ] 


THE    SOUL  S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

aesthetic  love  of  beauty,  general  benefi- 
cence in  the  ordered  phenomena  of  nature. 
One  will  see  what  he  looks  for.  In  the 
same  field  the  farmer  will  see  food  for 
cattle ;  the  artist  flowers  for  his  canvas  ; 
the  scientist  mechanical  contrivances  for  his 
analytical  dissection ;  the  devout  soul  wit- 
nesses of  a  life  greater,  wiser,  better  than 
his  own.  He  may  cultivate  the  habit  of  the 
Hebrew  Psalmist.  If  he  does,  what  he  will 
learn  in  time  to  see  and  hear  in  nature  will 
be  what  that  Psalmist  saw  and  heard :  — 

**  The  voice  of  the  Lord  is  upon  the  waters  : 
The  God  of  glory  thundereth. 
Even  the  Lord  upon  many  waters. 
The  voice  of  the  Lord  is  powerful ; 
The  voice  of  the  Lord  is  full  of  majesty. 
The  voice  of  the  Lord  breaketh  the  cedars ; 
Yea,    the   Lord   breaketh  in   pieces  the  cedars  of 

Lebanon. 
He  maketh  them  also  to  skip  like  a  calf; 
Lebanon  and  Sirion  like  a  young  wild-ox. 
The  voice  of  the  Lord  cleaveth  the  flames  of  fire. 
The  voice  of  the  Lord  shaketh  the  wilderness ; 
The  Lord  shaketh  the  wilderness  of  Kadesh. 
The  voice  of  the  Lord  maketh  the  hinds  to  calve. 
And  strippeth  the  forests  bare : 
And  in  his  temple  everything  saith.  Glory." 

[27] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

We  may  form  a  similar  habit  of  looking 
for  God  in  man.  "  He,"  says  John, 
"that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he 
hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he 
hath  not  seen  ?  "  This  would  be  a  strange 
non  sequitury  if  God  were  not  to  be  seen 
in  men.  There  is  a  divine  in  humanity, 
obscured,  alloyed,  corrupted ;  but  still  it 
is  there.  For  where  love  is,  there  God  is  ; 
and  in  all  the  revelations  of  love  there  is 
a  revelation  of  God,  who  is  himself  the 
fountain  of  love.  To  this.  Browning  has 
given  beautiful  expression,  though  his 
enigmatic  verse  will  not  yield  its  meaning 
to  the  mere  careless  reader :  — 

"  Round  us  the  wild  creatures,  overhead  the  trees. 
Underfoot  the  moss-tracks, — life^nd  love  with  these! 
I  to  wear  a  fawn-skin,  thou  to  dress  in  flowers; 
All  the  long  lone  summer  day,  that  greenwood  life  of 
ours  ! 

"  Rich-pavilioned,  rather, — still  the  world  without, — 
Inside  —  gold- roofed  silk- walled  silence  round  about! 
Queen  it  thou  on  purple,  —  I,  at  watch  and  ward 
Couched    beneath    the    columns,    gaze,   thy   slave, 
love's  guard! 

[  28  ] 


THE    SOUL  S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

"  So,  for  us  no  world  ?     Let  throngs  press  thee  to  me! 
Up  and  down  amid  men,  heart  by  heart  fare  we! 
Welcome  squalid  vesture,  harsh  voice,  hateful  face! 
God  is  soul,  souls  I  and  thou:  with  souls  should 
souls  have  place.** 

Optimism  and  piety  walk  the  world  to- 
gether. This  is  but  another  way  of  saying 
that  hope  and  faith  are  kin.  If  to  be 
without  God  is  to  be  without  hope,  it  is 
scarcely  less  true,  to  be  without  hope 
is  to  be  without  God.  He  who  looks 
for  the  worst  in  men  will  not  be  without 
belief  in  a  personal  devil ;  he  who  looks 
for  the  best  in  men  will  not  be  without 
faith  in  a  personal  God.  A  wealthy  lady, 
who  had  a  beautiful  rural  home  in  the 
vicinity  of  one  of  our  great  cities,  invited 
to  it  one  day  the  outcast  of  the  neighbor- 
ing city.  They  roamed  her  lawns,  visited 
her  conservatory,  swarmed  through  her 
gardens.  At  parting,  a  rough,  raw-boned 
Irishwoman  said  to  her,  in  a  voice  which 
for  depth,  but  not  for  smoothness,  would 

have  done  credit  to  a  basso,  "  Mrs. , 

I  guess  the  Lord  Jesus  put  this  into  your 

head,  did  n  t  he?"  — "I  think  he  did," 

[29] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

was  the  reply.  "  I  thought  so,"  was  the 
unconsciously  humorous  response ;  "  I 
knew  you  could  n't  have  thought  of  it 
yourself."  But  humorous  though  it  was, 
it  expressed  a  profound  truth.  The  higher 
thoughts  come  to  us  and  to  our  fellows. 
He  who  .will  look  in  life  for  its  heroisms, 
its  self-denials,  its  unselfish  services,  will 
find  faith  in  a  personal  God  stealing  into 
his  heart,  he  scarce  knows  how.  He  will 
find  himself  saying  to  himself,  all  un- 
consciously, "  God  put  this  into  your 
heart ;  you  could  n't  have  thought  of  it 
yourself." 

In  this  quest  after  God,  whether  in  the 
world  of  nature  or  the  world  of  men,  most 
of  us  need,  as  in  other  quests  after  knowl- 
edge, a  guide,  a  teacher.  Few  men  know 
how  to  see  accurately  material  things,  fewer 
still  how  to  perceive  spiritual  realities,  until 
they  have  been  shown.  There  are  men 
who  have  developed  with  patient  assiduity 
the  capacity  to  examine  the  outer  world, 
for  whose  guidance  we  should  be  pro- 
foundly grateful,  — Tyndall,  Huxley,  Dar- 
win, Agassiz,  and  hosts  of  others.     There 

[  30] 


THE    SOUL  S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

are  other  men  who  have  developed  the  gift 
of  seeing  the  invisible  world ;  and  when 
we  cannot  see  with  our  less-developed 
vision,  why  should  we  not  accept  their 
witness,  and  under  their  guidance  learn 
to  see  as  they  see  ?  The  testimony  of  the 
scientists  to  life  is  not  to  be  discarded  ; 
but  neither  is  the  testimony  of  the  poets. 
Imagination  is  also  a  capacity  to  see  ;  and 
the  poet  is  also  an  explorer.  Wordsworth 
will  tell  us  how  to  see  God  in  nature  ;  and 
Browning  how  to  see  God  in  men ;  and 
Whittier  how  to  see  God  in  our  own  souls. 
There  is  in  the  autobiography  of  Charles 
Darwin  a  pathetic  passage  in  which,  with 
characteristic  candor,  he  laments  the 
atrophy  of  his  own  imagination  and  his 
spiritual  nature,  and  accounts  for  it.  He 
says  :  ^  — 

*'  Up  to  the  age  of  thirty,  or  beyond  it,  poetry 
of  many  kinds,  such  as  the  works  of  Milton, 
Gray,  Byron,  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and 
Shelley,  gave  me  great  pleasure;  and  even  as  a 
schoolboy  I  took  intense  delight  in  Shakespeare, 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Dariuin,  vol.  I.  pp.  8 1 ,  8  2. 

[31  ] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

especially  in  the  historical  plays.  I  have  also 
said  that  formerly  pictures  gave  me  considerable, 
and  music  very  great,  delight.  But  now  for 
many  years  I  cannot  endure  to  read  a  line  of 
poetry;  I  have  tried  lately  to  read  Shakespeare, 
and  found  it  so  intolerably  dull  that  it  nauseated 
me.  I  have  also  almost  lost  my  taste  for  pic- 
tures and  music.  .  .  .  My  mind  seems  to  have 
become  a  kind  of  machine  for  grinding  general 
laws  out  of  large  collections  of  facts ;  but  why 
this  should  have  caused  the  atrophy  of  that  part 
of  the  brain  alone  on  which  the  higher  tastes 
depend,  I  cannot  conceive.  A  man  with  a 
mind  more  highly  organized  or  better  consti- 
tuted than  mine,  would  not,  I  suppose,  have 
thus  suffered ;  and  if  I  had  to  live  my  life  again, 
I  would  have  made  a  rule  to  read  some  poetry, 
and  listen  to  some  music,  at  least  once  every 
week ;  for  perhaps  the  parts  of  my  brain  now 
atrophied  would  thus  have  been  kept  active 
through  use.  The  loss  of  these  tastes  is  a  loss 
of  happiness,  and  may  possibly  be  injurious  to 
the  intellect,  and  more  probably  to  the  moral 
character,  by  enfeebling  the  emotional   part  of 


He  who  would  see  God  must  use  the 
faculty  with  which  God  is  seen  ;  and  if  he 

[32] 


THE    SOUL*S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

would  do  this,  he  must  let  men  who  are 
rich  in  the  faculty  which  perceives  the  in- 
visible, —  which  looks  not  at  the  things 
which  are  seen  and  are  temporal,  but  at 
the  things  which  are  not  seen  and  are  eter- 
nal,—  guide,  teach,  inspire  him.  Paul  has 
given  this  counsel  in  four  sentences,  which 
are  not  the  disconnected  aphorisms  they 
are  sometimes  taken  to  be :  "  Quench 
not  the  spirit ;  despise  not  prophesyings ; 
prove  all  things  ;  hold  fast  that  which  is 
good ! "  Which  may  be  liberally  ren- 
dered thus :  Do  not  extinguish  the  spirit- 
ual nature  within  you,  by  suffering  that 
part  of  your  powers  to  be  atrophied.  De- 
spise not  the  men  who  live  in  the  invisible 
world,  and  bear  testimony  out  of  their  ex- 
perience to  the  things  which  they  have 
seen  and  known.  Yet  take  not  all  utter- 
ances of  all  prophets  as  of  equal  authority  ; 
test  them.  And  such  as  prove  in  the 
trial  beneficent,  by  animating  human  life, 
and  making  it  nobler  and  better,  to  those 
hold  fast ;  that  is  the  test,  —  by  their  fruits 
ye  shall  know  them. 

In  this  quest  after  God  in  human  life 

[33] 


THE    SOUL*S    QUEST    AFTER    GOD 

we  must,  as  I  have  said,  seek  for  the  divine 
in  the  human;  for  the  gold  in  the  ore; 
for  the  flowers  among  the  weeds.  But 
there  is  one  life  in  which  that  divine  was 
not  corrupted  by  the  human,  though 
dwelling  in  it.  It  would  be  foreign  to 
the  purpose  of  this  book  to  attempt  to 
aflTord  a  theological  definition  of  Jesus 
Christ.  One  may  believe  that  he  was 
God  and  man  dwelling  together  in  a  dual 
personality  ;  or  God  in  human  flesh,  the 
divine  spirit  dwelling  under  the  limitations 
of  bodily  existence;  or  God-in-man,  the 
divine  Spirit  so  animating  the  man  Christ 
Jesus  as  to  make  him  a  God-filled  man  ; 
or  one  may  decline  to  define  his  faith, 
believing  that  Christ  transcends  all  defini- 
tion. But  he  can  hardly  read  with  un- 
prejudiced mind  the  story  of  that  wonderful 
life,  and  not  find  in  it  a  marvellous  reve- 
lation of  the  nature  of  God.  He  who 
would  find  God  will  find  him,  as  nowhere 
else,  in  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  the  Christ. 
Let  him  for  the  purpose  read  and  re-read 
the  story  of  that  life,  and  think  that  the 
Father  is,  in  the  infinite  and  eternal  rela- 

[34] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

tions,  what  Jesus  Christ  was  in  the  tempo- 
rary and  limited  ones.  Would  he  know 
how  God  feels  toward  us  in  our  sorrow, 
let  him  read  the  story  of  Christ's  visit  to 
the  sisters  of  Lazarus  ;  toward  the  sceptic 
in  his  unbelief,  let  him  read  the  story  of 
Jesus  and  Thomas;  toward  the  recreant 
disciple  who  has  been  unfaithful,  let  him 
read  the  interview  between  Christ  and 
Peter  by  the  Galilean  Sea;  toward  the 
penitent  sinner,  outcast  and  despairing, 
let  him  read  the  story  of  Christ's  pardon 
of  the  woman  who  was  a  sinner ;  toward 
the  men  who  use  religion  as  a  cloak  for 
self-service,  let  him  read  Christ's  denun- 
ciation of  the  Pharisees  who  devoured 
widows'  houses,  and  for  a  pretence  made 
long  prayers.  And  then  before  a  God 
thus  interpreted,  let  him  come  in  his  sor- 
row for  comfort ;  in  his  doubts  for  better, 
clearer  light ;  in  his  penitence  for  pardon  ; 
in  his  despair  for  a  new  courage  ;  and  in 
his  pride  for  condemnation.  In  doing 
this  we  may  take  either  one  of  the  many 
figures  by  which  the  New  Testament  writers 
interpret  Christ  to  us.     We  may  think  of 

[35] 


THE  SOUL  S  QUEST  AFTER  GOD 

him  as  the  Christ  of  God,  —  that  is,  as  the 
One  whom  God  has  anointed  and  sent 
into  the  world  to  reveal  the  unknown 
and  make  Him  known  ;  or  as  the  Son  of 
God,  —  that  is,  as  One  who  possesses  the 
Father's  nature,  and  so  discloses  it  to  us 
that  we  may  become  sons  of  God  ;  or  as 
the  Image  of  God,  —  that  is,  a  picture 
of  the  Invisible  and  the  Eternal  cast  upon 
the  sensitive-plate  of  a  pure  and  holy  life ; 
or,  laying  aside  all  figures,  we  may  simply 
accept  Christ's  words,  and  build  upon 
them,  "  Believe  that  I  am  in  the  Father, 
and  the  Father  in  me."  The  one  thing 
important  for  him  who  is  seeking  God  is 
to  seek  to  find  him  in  Jesus  Christ,  as  he 
has  sought  to  find  him  in  nature,  in  hu- 
manity, and  in  the  experience  of  the  pro- 
phetic and  devout  souls  portrayed  in 
literature.  He  who  thus  seeks  will  find 
him  in  Jesus  Christ,  with  a  clearness  of 
disclosure  found  nowhere  else. 

But  we  must  look  for  God  in  Christ 
not  only  by  reading  about  Christ,  but  by 
endeavoring  to  be  like  him.  It  is  only 
by  participation  in   his  life    that  we  can 

[36] 


THE    soul's    quest    AFTER    GOD 

come  to  an  acquaintance  with  him.  Not 
so  much  by  studying  the  life  of  Christ  as 
by  endeavoring  to  live  it,  do  we  come  into 
fellowship  with  the  Father,  and  with  his 
Son  Jesus  Christ.  If  it  is  true  that  we  shall 
be  like  him  when  we  see  him  as  he  is,  it  is 
also  true  that  we  can  see  him  as  he  is,  only 
as  we  are  like  him.  There  is  one  utter- 
ance of  Paul  in  which  the  two  different 
translations,  that  of  the  Old  Version  and 
that  of  the  Revised  Version,  bring  out  this 
distinction  very  clearly  :  — 

Old  Version,  —  We  all,  with  open  face 
beholding  as  in  a  glass  the  glory  of  the 
Lord,  are  changed  into  the  same  image 
from  glory  to  glory. 

Revised  Version, — We  all,  with  unveiled 
face  reflecting  as  a  mirror  the  glory  of  the 
Lord,  are  transformed  into  the  same  image 
from  glory  to  glory. 

It  is  not  by  beholding  as  in  a  glass, 
it  is  by  reflecting  as  from  a  mirror,  that 
the  transformation  comes ;  and  with  the 
transformation,  acquaintance,  friendship. 


[37] 


II 

GOD   IN   NATURE 


II 

GOD  IN  NATURE^ 

WE  are  to  discriminate  clearly  be- 
tween tbeology^aAdLi^el^ion,  be- 
tween life  and  the  philosophy  of  life.  My 
object  this  morning  is  not  to  expound  a 
complete  system  of  philosophy,  but  to 
consider  the  effect  of  the  change  which  is 
taking  place  in  philosophy  upon  the  re- 
ligious life. 

The  object  of  the  minister  is  not  to  ex- 
pound philosophy,  but  to  promote  life. 
He  is  not  a  teacher  of  theology,  but  a 
preacher  of  religion.  He  must  be  a  theo- 
logian ;  he  must  have  a  philosophy  of  the 
life  which  he  is  imparting ;  nevertheless, 
his  object  is  not  to  impart  the  philosophy, 
but  to  use  the  philosophy  that  he  may 
impart  the  life.  "  I  have  come  that  they 
may  have  life,  and  that  they  may  have  it 

*  Copyright,  1899,  by  Lyman  Abbott.  Copyright, 
1900,  by  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Co. 

[41  ] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

more  abundantly/'  says  Christ.  And  then 
he  breathes  upon  his  disciples  and  says, 
"  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Spirit.  As  my 
Father  hath  sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you." 
We  who  are  ministers  of  his  grace  are  to 
be  administers  of  his  life.  We  are  to  im- 
part life.  We  are  to  do  this  through  truth  ; 
nevertheless,  for  his  ministers  truth  is  not 
an  end,  but  a  means  to  an  end.  Truth  is 
instrumental. 

The  teacher  in  the  medical  school 
teaches  physiology  and  anatomy  and  hy- 
giene ;  but  when  we  get  sick  and  send  for 
a  doctor,  we  do  not  send  in  order  that  we 
may  receive  a  lecture  on  physiology  or 
anatomy  or  hygiene.  We  send  for  the 
doctor  that  he  may  use  his  knowledge  of 
physiology  or  anatomy  or  hygiene  to  make 
us  well.  You  break  a  bone  ;  you  do  not 
want  the  doctor  to  tell  you  about  bones, 
you  want  him  to  set  the  bone.  So  the 
object  of  ministers  is  not  to  lecture  us  on 
the  philosophy  of  religion ;  neither  is  it 
to  ignore  the  philosophy  of  religion ;  it  is 
to  use  the  philosophy  of  religion  to  help 
men  and  women  to  live  better,  nobler, 
[42] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

diviner  lives.  "  The  truth,"  says  Christ, 
"  shall  make  you  free."  "  Sanctify  them 
through  thy  truth;  thy  word  is  truth." 
Truth  is,  then,  an  instrument.  The  ob- 
ject of  truth  is  to  set  men  free ;  it  is  to 
sanctify  men,  to  make  them  holy. 

The  minister  who  simply  expounds  the 
truth  does  not  understand  his  mission. 
His  mission  is  so  to  use  truth  that  men 
shall  be  made  free;  that  men  shall  be 
made  holy.  His  ministry  is,  therefore,  to 
be  determined  by  fruits  in  the  life.  That 
is  the  best  sermon,  not  which  is  a  great 
pulpit  effort,  but  which  is  helpful.  If, 
young  men,  you  have  preached  a  sermon 
and  some  one  comes  up  to  you  and  says 
that  was  a  great  pulpit  effort,  hide  your 
head  in  shame  and  go  home  and  never 
write  another  like  it.  But  if  some  one 
comes  to  you,  with  a  little  quaver  in  the 
voice  and  a  little  moisture  in  the  eye,  and 
says,  "  Thank  you ;  you  have  helped  me 
this  morning,"  thank  God  and  go  home 
and  try  to  write  another  like  it.  That  is 
the  end  of  preaching  —  to  use  theology  to 
help  life.     The  test  of  the  sermon  is  its 

[43] 


60 D    IK    NATURE 

fruitful ness  in  life  ;  and  that  is  the  test  of 
theology. 

We  are  not,  however,  to  judge  of  a 
truth  beforehand  by  the  fruit  which  we 
think  it  will  produce.  It  is  the  truth 
which  makes  free,  not  any  kind  of  error. 
It  is  the  truth  which  sanctifies  men,  not 
any  kind  of  falsehood.  All  truth  is  safe. 
All  error  is  dangerous.  It  is  only  the 
truth  that  the  minister  is  to  use.  He  is 
never  to  say,  "  This  is  the  philosophy 
that  my  people  are  used  to  and  this  is 
the  philosophy  that  I  think  will  do  better 
service,  and  so,  though  I  do  not  believe 
it,  I  will  preach  it.*'  Never !  It  is  only 
the  truth  he  is  to  use,  but  he  is  always 
to  use  the  truth.  Truth  is  always  an 
instrument. 

He  is  to  distinguish,  too,  between  the 
things  he  knows  and  the  things  he  thinks, 
between  certainties  and  hypotheses.  He 
must  have  both,  both  certainties  and  hy- 
potheses, but  he  must  distinguish  in  his 
own  mind  between  the  two.  It  is  abso- 
lutely certain  that  there  is  sunlight,  and  it 
is  absolutely  certain  that  that  sunlight  pro- 
[44] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 


duces  certain  vital  effects  on  humanity 
and  vegetation ;  and  it  is  now  the  univer- 
sally accepted  hypothesis  that  the  whole 
universe  is  filled  with  an  invisible,  impal- 
pable ether,  and  that  sunlight  is  produced 
by  undulations  of  that  ether.  The  ether 
is  a  hypothesis.  The  sunlight  is  a  cer- 
tainty. In  science  we  all  recognize  this 
distinction  between  the  hypotheses  and 
the  certainties.  Unfortunately,  we  have 
not  yet  learned  in  theology  to  distinguish 
between  the  hypotheses  and  the  certainties. 
We  generally  quarrel  about  the  hypotheses. 
It  is,  for  instance,  a  certainty,  I  hope 
in  the  experience  of  all  of  us,  —  certainly 
it  must  be  a  certainty  in  the  experience 
of  every  minister,  or  he  has  no  right  in 
the  pulpit,  —  that  God  is.  God  is  not  a 
hypothesis  which  the  minister  has  invented 
to  account  for  the  phenomena  of  creation. 
He  knows  that  there  is  a  "  power  not 
ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness," 
because  when  he  has  been  weak  that  power 
has  strengthened  him,  when  he  has  been 
a  coward  that  power  has  made  him  strong, 
when  he  has  been  in  sorrow  that  power 

[45] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

has  comforted  him,  when  he  has  been  in 
perplexity  that  power  has  counselled  him, 
and  he  has  walked  a  different  path,  and 
lived  a  different  life,  and  been  a  different 
man,  because  there  is  that  power,  — im- 
palpable, invisible,  unknown,  and  yet  best 
and  most  truly  known.  But  when  he 
comes  to  ask  himself  for  a  definition  of 
this  power,  for  an  account  of  its  attributes, 
and  its  relation  to  the  phenomena  about 
him,  he  enters  at  once  into  the  realm  of 
hypothesis.  We  know  God  in  his  per- 
sonal relation  to  ourselves.  What  he  is 
in  himself  and  what  he  is  in  his  relations 
to  the  great  universal  phenomena,  that  is 
matter  of  hypothesis. 

It  is  about  the  effect  of  a  new  hypoth- 
esis on  our  religious  life  that  I  am  going 
to  talk  to  you  this  morning.  I  am  not 
going  to  consider  which  of  two  hypotheses 
is  true ;  I  am  going  to  try  to  describe  two 
hypotheses,  and  consider  their  respective 
effects  on  the  religious  life.  I  will  de- 
scribe them  as  matters  of  personal  experi- 
ence ;  because  I  find  that  when  I  attempt 
to  describe  the  old  theology,  some  of  my 
[46] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

friends,  who  still  hold  to  it,  think  I  am 
describing  it  unjustly  and  unfairly ;  I  do 
not  wish  to  describe  another  man's  opin- 
ion, because  I  find  it  so  difficult  for  other 
men  to  describe  mine. 

As  I  look  back,  I  can  remember  some- 
thing of  the  view  which  it  seems  to  me  I 
held  when  I  was  entering  into  the  min- 
istry. It  was  something  like  this  :  There 
is  a  great  and  good  God.  He  is  some- 
where in  the  centre  of  the  universe  — 
whether  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body 
I  knew  not,  and  yet  in  my  conception  I 
embodied  him.  He  is  the  creator  and 
the  ruler  of  the  world.  He  had  made  the 
world.  I  conceived  of  him  as  making  the 
world  as  an  architect  makes  a  building. 
I  rather  think  somewhere,  in  some  of  my 
earlier  sermons,  that  figure  would  be  found 
worked  out  —  he  had  turned  it  in  a  lathe  ; 
he  had  erected  the  pillars ;  he  had  woven 
the  carpet  of  grass ;  he  had  ornamented 
it  with  the  flowers.  You  have  heard  that 
from  other  ministers,  and  no  doubt  you 
would  have  heard  it  from  me  when  I  was 
a   young   man.     And  as  I  conceived  of 

[47] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 


God  creating  the  world  as  an  engineer 
creates  an  engine,  so  also  I  conceived  of 
him  regulating  this  world  as  an  engineer 
regulates  the  engine.  When  men  said  to 
me,  "  Do  you  believe  in  miracles  ?  Do 
you  believe  that  God  has  set  aside  natu- 
ral law  ?  "  I  said,  "  Oh,  no,  but  he  uses 
natural  law.  As  an  engineer  uses  the 
steam  and  the  fire,  or  as  an  electric  engi- 
neer uses  the  electricity,  so  God  uses  the 
forces  of  nature.  He  is  in  his  engine, 
with  his  hand  on  the  lever ;  he  can  add  to 
its  speed  or  he  can  diminish  its  speed,  or 
he  can  halt  it,  or  he  can  make  it  go  back- 
ward, or  he  can  turn  it  in  the  one  direc- 
tion or  the  other  direction.  He  made  the 
engine  and  he  rules  the  engine.'*  Some- 
thing like  that  was  my  conception  of  God. 
Similarly  I  conceived  of  him  in  his  re- 
lation to  men  as  a  great  king.  He  had 
issued  certain  laws,  and  had  attached  cer- 
tain punishments  to  those  laws.  There 
cannot  be  law  without  punishment ;  a  law 
without  a  penalty  attached  is  only  advice, 
not  law.  I  conceived  that  God  had  issued 
laws,  and  to  them  had  attached  penalties. 
[48] 


COD    IN    NATURE 

Those  laws  had  come  from  his  throne 
like  edicts  from  an  imperial  Czar.  They 
were  righteous  and  just  laws,  and  I  had 
broken  them,  and  the  whole  human  race 
had  broken  them,  and  punishment  was 
denounced  against  the  whole  human  race 
for  breaking  them,  and  that  punishment 
must  be  executed.  And  yet  God  was 
merciful  and  wished  to  spare  men.  And 
so  his  Son  had  come  into  the  world,  and 
had  borne  the  punishment  in  order  that 
the  law  might  be  carried  out  and  still  man 
might  be  forgiven.  That  God  might  both 
be  just  and  the  justifier  of  him  that  be- 
lieveth,  some  one  had  to  bear  the  penalty 
which  had  been  attached  to  the  law.  So 
I  conceived  of  God  as  sitting  apart  from 
his  creation  which  he  had  made  and  ruling 
It,  and  apart  from  men  whom  he  had 
made  and  ruling  them. 

And  when  I  entertained  this  conception 
of  God  as  sitting  apart  from  the  universe 
which  he  had  made  and  ruling  it,  and 
apart  from  men  whom  he  had  made  and 
ruling  them,  it  seemed  to  me  that  the 
most  fundamental    question    in   theology 

[49] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

was.  Do  you  believe  in  the  supernatural  ? 
If  a  man  did  not  believe  in  the  super- 
natural, then  all  he  believed  in  was  the 
machine ;  he  believed  in  the  engine,  but 
he  did  not  think  there  was  any  engi- 
neer to  control  it ;  he  believed  in  hu- 
manity, but  he  did  not  think  there  was 
any  king  to  govern  men.  And  one  who 
believed  simply  in  the  engine  without  any 
engineer,  and  in  the  community  without 
any  king,  was  either  an  atheist  or  a  deist ; 
that  is,  either  he  believed  there  was  no 
God,  or  else  he  believed  in  an  absentee 
God,  in  a  God  who  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  world,  a  God  who  had  nothing 
to  do  with  men.  And  it  did  not  seem  to 
me  then,  and  it  does  not  seem  to  me  now, 
that  there  is  much  to  choose  between  the 
belief  in  no  God  and  the  belief  in  an 
absentee  God.  For  religion  consists,  I 
recall  to  you  again,  not  in  a  hypothesis 
that  there  is  a  God,  but  in  a  life  lived 
under  the  inspiration  of  God  ;  and  if  God 
is  conceived  as  so  far  off  that  there  is  no 
longer  any  intercommunication  between 
God  and  the  soul,  he  is  an  absentee  God, 
[50] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 


and  life  goes  on  without  him.  Under 
that  conception  there  cannot  be  any  vital 
religion,  for  religion  is  the  inflowing  of 
God  upon  life. 

"Religion,"  says  Max  Miiller,  "con- 
sists in  the  perception  of  the  infinite  under 
such  manifestations  as  are  able  to  influence 
the  moral  character  of  man.*'  If,  then, 
God  is  represented  as  absent  from  the 
universe  so  that  he  does  not  produce  any 
influence  on  the  conduct  and  character  of 
man,  there  is  no  religion. 

Gradually  my  whole  conception  of  the 
relation  of  God  to  the  universe  has 
changed.  I  am  sure  that  I  have  not  lost 
my  experience  of  God.  I  am  far  more 
certain  now  than  I  was  forty  years  ago 
that  God  is,  and  that  God  is  not  an  ab- 
sentee God.  I  am  not  quite  so  certain  as 
I  once  was  about  some  of  the  manifesta- 
tions which  I  once  thought  he  had  made 
of  himself.  I  am  a  great  deal  more  cer- 
tain than  I  once  was  of  his  personal  rela- 
tion to  me.  My  experience  of  God  has 
changed  only  to  grow  deeper,  broader, 
and   stronger.       But   my  conception    of 

[  51  ] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

God's  relation  to  the  universe  has  changed 
radically.  My  hypothesis  was  —  God  an 
engineer  who  had  made  an  engine  and 
sat  apart  from  it,  ruling  it;  God  a  king 
who  had  made  the  human  race  and  sat 
apart  from  men,  ruling  them.  That  was 
my  hypothesis ;  now  I  have  another  hy- 
pothesis. And  I  think  the  change  which 
has  come  over  my  mind  is  coming  and 
has  come  over  the  minds  of  a  great  many. 
I  think  that  there  is  nothing  original  in 
what  I  am  going  to  say  to  you  this  morn- 
ing, for  I  am  only  going  to  interpret  to 
you  a  change,  perhaps  not  altogether  un- 
derstood, which  is  being  wrought  in  the 
mind  of  the  whole  Christian  Church.  I 
think  my  change  only  reflects  your  change. 
But  whether  that  be  true  or  not,  I  am 
sure  the  change  has  taken  place  in  me. 

I  now  conceive  of  God  as  in  his  uni- 
verse. I  conceive  of  creation  as  a  growth. 
I  conceive  of  him  as  making  the  universe 
somewhat  as  our  spirit  makes  our  body, 
shaping  and  changing  and  developing  it 
by  processes  from  within.  The  figures 
from  the  finite  to  the  infinite  are  imper- 
[52] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

feet  and  misleading,  but  this  is  the  figure 
which  best  represents  to  me  my  own 
thought  of  God's  relation  to  the  universe  : 
Not  that  of  an  engineer  who  said  one 
morning,  "  Go  to,  I  will  make  a  world," 
and  in  six  days,  or  six  thousand  years,  or 
six  million  thousand  years,  made  one  by 
forming  it  from  without,  as  a  potter  forms 
the  clay  with  skilful  hand ;  but  that  of  a 
Spirit  who  has  been  forever  manifesting 
himself  in  the  works  of  creation  and  be- 
neficence in  all  the  universe,  one  little 
work  of  whose  wisdom  and  beneficence 
we  are  and  we  see. 

I  look  out  upon  the  universe  and  I  see 
that  it  is  a  universe,  a  variety  in  unity.  I 
see  that  there  is  a  unity  in  all  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  and  that  science  has 
more  and  more  made  that  unity  clear,  and 
I  see  that  there  is  one  Infinite  and  Eter- 
nal Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed. 
And  I  see  too,  it  seems  to  me  very 
clearly,  that  this  Energy  is  an  intellectual 
Energy;  that  is,  that  the  physical  phe- 
nomena of  the  universe  are  intellectually 
related    to    one    another.       The   scientist 

[53] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

does  not  create  the  relations ;  he  finds 
them.  They  are ;  he  discovers  them. 
All  science  is  thinking  the  thoughts  of 
God  after  him.  It  is  finding  thought 
where  thought  has  done  its  intellectual 
work ;  it  is  learning  what  are  those  in- 
tellectual relationships  which  have  been  in 
and  are  embodied  in  creation. 

Matthew  Arnold  says:  "There  is  a 
power  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness." The  unity  of  physical  phe- 
nomena is  not  more  certain  than  the  unity 
of  moral  phenomena.  It  makes  history 
possible,  moral  philosophy  possible,  soci- 
ology possible,  the  study  of  literature  and 
human  life  possible.  We  are  each  one  of 
us  an  individual,  and  yet  the  nation  has 
its  entity  and  the  human  race  its  entity, 
and  we  are  all  one.  The  seventy  millions 
of  people  in  these  United  States  are  not 
seventy  million  separated  grains  of  sand ; 
we  are  an  organic  nation.  These  many 
millions  upon  this  globe,  that  have  in- 
habited it  we  know  not  how  long,  and  are 
to  inhabit  it  we  know  not  how  much 
longer,  are  not    like  the   grains    of  sand 

[54] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

lying  upon  the  ocean  beach;  we  are  a 
unit,  with  a  beginning,  with  a  progress, 
with  a  history,  with  a  development,  with 
a  moral  law  that  unites  and  makes  us  one. 
As  there  is,  therefore,  one  power  that 
makes  for  order  in  the  natural  universe, 
so  there  is  one  power  that  makes  for 
righteousness  in  the  moral  universe ;  and 
if  it  makes  for  righteousness  it  is  a  right- 
eous power,  as  the  power  that  makes  for 
order  is  an  intellectual  power.  In  other 
words,  I  have  come  to  believe  that  in  the 
world  of  nature  and  back  of  all  its  phe- 
nomena, and  in  the  world  of  men  and 
back  of  all  human  phenomena,  is  one 
great  intellectual  and  righteous  Power 
manifesting  himself  in  and  through  the 
world  of  nature,  manifesting  himself  in 
and  through  the  world  of  men. 

Perhaps  some  one  will  ask  me  here, 
"  Do  you  believe  in  a  personal  God  ? " 
A  reporter  of  one  of  the  daily  papers  once 
came  to  me  ;  he  wanted  to  make  a  column 
of  copy  for  his  paper,  and  he  had  a  long 
row  of  questions  on  the  subject  of  theol- 
ogy.    I  was  bowing  him  out  of  the  room 

[55] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

with  gentle  declination  when  he  stopped 
me,  saying  :  "  Oh,  but,  Mr.  Abbott,  just 
one  question  :  Do  you  beUeve  in  a  personal 
God?"  "Well,"  I  said,  "what  do  you 
mean  by  a  personal  God  ?  "  He  said  : 
"  I  mean  a  great  big  man  sitting  up  in  the 
inner  circle  of  the  universe,  ruling  things." 
"  No,"  I  said,  "  I  do  not  believe  in  that 
kind  of  a  personal  God."  "  Oh,  well, 
then,"  he  said,  "  you  are  a  pantheist."  I 
have  long  since  learned  that,  if  fine  words 
butter  no  parsnips,  hard  words  break  no 
bones.  If  my  new  conception  of  God  were 
pantheism,  and  I  thought  it  were  true,  I 
hope  I  should  dare  to  say,  I  am  a  panthe- 
ist. But  it  is  not  pantheism.  The  differ- 
ence between  saying  that  God  is  in  all 
nature,  and  God  is  nature  —  the  difference 
between  saying  that  God  is  in  all  phe- 
nomena, and  saying  that  God  is  simply 
the  sum  of  all  phenomena,  seems  to  me 
plain  enough  —  even  for  such  a  reporter 
of  a  daily  newspaper  to  understand.  No. 
I  believe  that  I  am  in  my  body,  equally 
regnant  in  every  part  of  it ;  but  I  am  sure 
that  I  am  something  more  than  my  body. 

[  56  ] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

I  believe  that  God  is  in  all  phenomena, 
regnant  in  them  all ;  but  I  believe  that  he 
is  something  more  than  the  sum  of  all 
phenomena.  He  is  more  than  any  mani- 
festation of  himself.  He  is  more,  there- 
fore, than  the  sum  of  all  the  manifestations 
of  himself.^ 

I  am  not  going  this  morning  to  argue 
for  one  or  the  other  of  these  conceptions. 
I  am  not  going  to  try  to  show  you  that 
the  one  is  true  and  the  other  erroneous. 
I  am  going  to  try  to  consider  with  you  the 
difference  which  this  change  in  conception 
makes  in  the  religious  life.  This  is  the 
topic  which  I  have  been  asked  to  speak 
on  :  The  relation  of  nature  and  the  super- 
natural to  the  Christian  thought  of  to-day  ; 
not  to  argue  philosophically  which  is  true, 
but  to  consider  practically  what  is  the 
effect  of  our  changed  conceptions  on  our 
spiritual  life. 

*  A  man  is  no  less  a  person  because  he  can  speak  in 
New  York  and  be  heard  in  Chicago,  or  press  a  button  in 
Washington  and  set  machinery  in  motion  in  Omaha. 
Extension  of  power  does  not  lessen  the  personality  of  him 
who  exercises  it. 

[57] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 


In  the  first  place,  then,  I  no  longer  rec- 
ognize a  distinction  between  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural.  When  I  thought 
that  God  sat  apart  from  nature,  ruling 
over  it  as  an  engineer  rules  over  his  en- 
gine, then  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  of  essen- 
tial importance  that  one  should  believe  in 
the  supernatural,  that  is,  in  the  One  who 
was  apart  from  nature,  and  did  rule  over 
it.  But  now  that  I  believe  that  God  is  in 
nature,  ruling  through  it,  and  in  humanity, 
ruling  in  the  hearts  of  men,  all  the  natural 
seems  to  me  most  supernatural,  and  all  the 
supernatural  most  natural.  For  not  now 
and  then  in  special  episodes  and  exceptional 
interferences  does  the  finger  of  God  ap- 
pear ;  not  now  and  then,  as  when  the  en- 
gineer adds  the  steam  or  subtracts  it,  or 
reverses  his  engine,  does  the  will  of  God 
show  itself  in  life  ;  not  now  and  then  does 
the  King  appear  as  King,  by  the  issuance 
of  a  new  edict.  God  is  in  all  of  nature ; 
all  its  forces  are  the  forces  of  God ;  all  its 
laws  are  the  methods  of  God ;  all  its  ac- 
tivities are  the  activities  of  God.  And  in 
human  nature  the  laws  of  God  are  the 
[  58  ] 


GOD    IK    NATURE 

beatific  influences  which  proceed  from 
him,  the  spiritual  forces  projected  from 
him  as  the  rays  from  the  sun,  and  which 
vivify  the  hearts  of  those  who  receive  them. 
Creation,  therefore,  is  no  longer  the 
manufacture  of  a  globe  by  an  architect  or 
a  builder.  It  is  not  something  that  God 
did  six  thousand  years  ago,  and,  ending, 
stopped  to  rest.  Creation  is  a  continuous 
process.  It  is  always  going  on.  The  ge- 
ologists tell  us  that  the  same  convulsions 
that  shook  the  solid  world  in  the  time  of 
its  birth,  that  shot  the  mountains  up  and 
dug  the  channels  for  the  seas  and  the  riv- 
ers, are  going  on  even  in  historic  times. 
God  is  always  creating.  .  Every  flower  is 
a  new  creation.  Every  day  he  separates 
the  waters  that  are  under  the  firmament 
from  the  waters  that  are  above  the  firma- 
ments ;  for  he  it  is  who  daily  and  hourly 
lifts  the  clouds  from  their  ocean  bed  and 
causes  them  to  float  in  the  air  above. 
Every  spring  is  a  new  creation,  and  he 
himself  is  the  secret  and  the  source  and 
the  centre  of  all  the  life.  Between  the 
philosophy  that  says  there  is  no  God  or 
[  59] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

there  is  only  an  absentee  God,  and  the 
philosophy  that  says  that  God  is  in  all 
phenomena  and  if  there  were  no  God  there 
would  be  no  phenomena,  there  is  certainly 
nothing  of  kin.  These  are  not  extremes 
that  meet.  The  abolition  of  the  distinc- 
tion between  natural  and  supernatural  for 
the  purpose  of  getting  rid  of  the  super- 
natural is  one  thing ;  the  abolition  of  the 
distinction  for  the  purpose  of  affirming 
that  the  supernatural  is  in  everything  is 
quite  another. 

A  writer  in  the  Interior^  of  Chicago, 
said,  in  a  criticism  on  one  of  my  lectures, 
some  years  ago,  that  Dr.  Abbott  held 
that  God  created  amoebae,  and  amoebae  did 
the  rest.  I  do  not  know  how  it  would  be 
possible  in  a  sentence  of  equal  length  to 
state  more  clearly  what  I  exactly  do  not 
believe.  I  hold  that  God  is  the  secret 
and  the  source  and  the  centre  of  all  life. 
When  your  spirit  departs  from  your  body 
the  body  crumbles  into  dust.  If  I  could 
conceive  the  Spirit  of  God  departing  from 
nature  I  think  all  nature  would  crumble 
to   dust.     No  longer  would  the  planets 

[60] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

circle  around  the  sun;  no  longer  would 
clouds  float  in  the  air ;  no  longer  would 
the  sunbeams  flood  the  earth ;  no  longer 
would  flowers  bloom,  or  water  run,  or 
rain  fall,  or  men  walk,  or  living  creatures 
breathe.  God  is  himself  the  life  of  life. 
All  things  are  his  breath ;  literally,  scien- 
tifically, absolutely,  in  him  all  things  live 
and  move  and  have  their  being. 

I  have,  therefore,  for  myself,  practically 
abandoned  the  distinction  between  general 
providences  and  special  providences.  A 
special  providence  is,  in  this  new  concep- 
tion of  God's  relation  to  the  universe, 
nothing  but  a  general  providence  specially 
perceived.  It  is  a  clearer  perception  of 
the  universal  presence.  God  is  in  all  the 
phenomena ;  sometimes  we  wake  up  and 
see  him ;  then  we  say,  "  Behold,  a  special 
providence."  It  is  we  who  have  opened 
our  eyes.  This  is  what  I  think  Christ 
means  when  he  says :  Not  a  sparrow  fall- 
eth  to  the  ground  without  your  Father. 
This  is  what  he  means  when  he  bids  us 
pray  day  by  day  for  our  daily  bread.  The 
children  at  the  table  do  not  realize  that 
[6i  ] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

the  bread  and  milk  which  they  have  regu- 
larly for  supper  is  the  father's  gift  as  well 
as  the  box  of  candy  which  he  brings  home 
on  birthdays ;  but  the  one  is  as  much  the 
father's  providence  as  the  other,  only  the 
children  specialize  the  one  and  recognize 
it.     That  is  all. 

Therefore,  a  miracle  no  longer  seems  to 
me  a  manifestation  of  extraordinary  power, 
but  an  extraordinary  manifestation  of  ordi- 
nary power.  God  is  always  showing  him- 
self Perhaps  some  of  you  may  think  this 
is  a  new  theology  ;  but  this  particular  bit 
of  theology  is  as  old  as  Augustine,  and  as 
orthodox.  It  is  Augustine  who  said,  a 
birth  —  I  am  not  quoting  his  exact  words, 
but  I  am  giving  the  spirit  of  them  —  a 
birth  is  more  miraculous  than  a  resurrec- 
tion, because  it  is  more  wonderful  that 
something  that  never  was  should  begin  to 
be,  than  that  something  which  was  and 
ceased  to  be  should  begin  again.  The 
difference  between  the  birth  and  the  resur- 
rection is  that  one  is  made  palpable  to  our 
senses  every  day,  and  the  other  in  the  one 
great  event  of  human  history  was  made 

[62] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

palpable  to  the  senses  of  a  few  witnesses 
in  years  long  gone  by.  The  mere  fact 
that  a  miracle  is  an  extraordinary  event 
seems  to  me  to  constitute  no  reason  for 
discrediting  it.  For  the  credibility  of  an 
event  does  not  depend  upon  the  nature 
of  the  event,  but  upon  the  nature  of  the 
testimony  which  attests  it.  If  the  Old 
Testament  told  the  story  of  a  naval  en- 
gagement between  the  Jewish  people  and 
a  pagan  people,  in  which  all  the  ships  of 
the  pagan  people  were  absolutely  de- 
stroyed, and  not  a  single  man  killed  among 
the  Jews,  all  the  skeptics  would  have 
scorned  the  narrative.  Every  one  now 
believes  it  —  except  those  who  live  in 
Spain. 

Do  I,  then,  believe  in  miracles  ?  I  be- 
lieve in  some,  and  some  events  that  have 
been  called  miracles  I  do  not  believe,  and 
some  I  do  not  think  were  intended  to  be 
regarded  as  miracles  at  all.  The  story  of 
the  sun  and  the  moon  standing  still  I  do 
not  think  was  intended  to  be  taken  as  his- 
tory by  the  man  who  wrote  the  narrative. 
It  was  poetry,  and  is  quoted  from  an  old 
[63] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

poetic  legend.  The  story  of  the  great  fish 
that  swallowed  a  prophet  I  do  not  believe 
was  ever  intended  to  be  taken  as  history 
by  the  man  who  wrote  it.  I  think  it  is  a 
genial  yet  keen  satire  of  Jewish  narrow- 
ness, written  for  the  purpose  of  making 
clear  that  there  is  a  wideness  in  God*s 
mercy  like  the  wideness  of  the  sea.  Some 
other  of  the  strange  events  recorded  in  the 
Bible  seem  to  me  story  rather  than  his- 
tory ;  I  do  not  think  them  well  authenti- 
cated; nor  does  their  historical  truthfulness 
appear  to  me  a  matter  of  any  importance. 
The  story  that  once  upon  a  time  an  ax- 
head  dropped  into  a  pool  and  sunk,  and  a 
prophet  threw  in  a  branch  and  then  the 
ax-head  swam  again,  to  me  carries  a  better 
lesson  if  I  think  of  it  as  an  illustration  of 
the  Hebrew  folk-lore,  the  sort  of  stories 
that  mothers  told  their  children  in  the 
olden  time,  than  it  does  if  I  try  to  make 
myself  think  it  happened — because  I  do 
not  succeed  very  well  if  I  do  try.^  The 
Book  of  Ruth  is  clearly  romance,  though 

1  In  Bartlett  and  Peters' s  edition  of  the  Scriptures  this 
story  is  classed  with  Literature,  not  with  History. 

[64] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

historical  romance ;  I  see  no  reason  for 
doubting  that  the  Samson  story  is  so  also. 
The  mere  mechanical  fact  that  one  narra- 
tive is  incorporated  in  the  Book  of  Judges 
and  the  other  is  separated  from  it  does  not 
seem  to  me  to  affect  the  question  either  of 
credibility  or  interpretation.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  best-attested  fact  of 
ancient  history ;  attested  by  the  witness 
of  disciples  whose  interest  would  not  have 
led  them  to  attest  it  and  whose  prejudices 
were  all  against  their  faith  in  it;  attested 
by  the  change  of  the  day  of  rest  from  the 
seventh  day,  which  the  Jewish  nation  had 
up  to  that  time  kept,  to  the  first  day,  ever 
after  celebrating  the  resurrection  ;  attested 
by  the  growth  and  life  of  Christianity  it- 
self, which,  if  Christ  did  not  rise  from  the 
dead,  I  must  think  was  historically  founded 
on  either  a  great  folly  or  a  great  fraud, 
and  to  believe  that  would  be  to  believe 
that  there  is  no  moral  order  in  the  uni- 
verse. That  the  disciples  had  ocular  evi- 
dence which  convinced  them  against  all 
their  preconceptions  that  the  Christ  was 

[65] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

living  whom  they  thought  was  dead  ap- 
pears to  me  as  certain  as  any  fact  in  history 
can  be.  Whether  that  ocular  demonstra- 
tion was  afforded  by  the  return  of  the  de- 
parted spirit  to  reanimate  the  crucified 
body,  or  by  the  disciples'  vision  of  the 
spiritual  and  incorporeal  body,  appears  to 
me  a  question  neither  possible  nor  impor- 
tant to  determine.  The  former  hypothesis 
presents,  I  think,  the  fewer  difficulties  ; 
but  the  fact  of  continuous  life  is  the  one 
and  only  important  fact. 

Surely  this  conception  of  God  in  all  na- 
ture, all  life,  all  epochs,  is  not  carrying 
God  away  from  us.  It  is  bringing  him 
nearer.  If  every  springtime,  as  I  see  the 
buds  growing  and  the  leaves  putting  them- 
selves forth,  and  the  flowers  beginning  to 
bloom,  and  the  birds  beginning  to  sing,  I 
look  out  and  say,  "  God  is  creating  a  new 
world;"  if  in  every  incident  and  accident, 
so  called,  of  my  life,  I  look  to  see  what  the 
voice  of  God  is  for  me,  what  errand  he 
would  send  me  on,  what  mission  he  would 
give  me,  what  he  means  ;  if  all  events  seem 
to  me  to  have  God's  voice  in  them,  and  I 
[  66  ] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

seek  to  understand  them  all  and  follow 
them  all ;  if  every  event  is  a  manifestation 
of  his  presence  and  power,  and  a  miracle 
only  an  unusual  manifestation  of  a  power 
equally  present  at  all  times  and  in  all  eras 
—  surely  my  philosophy  is  not  getting  me 
away  from  God,  but  nearer  to  him. 

It  is  not  easy  to  formulate  in  a  sentence 
that  change  which  has  come  over  my 
thought,  and,  as  I  believe,  the  thought  of 
the  present  generation,  respecting  God's 
relation  to  man.  Shall  I  say  we  are  com- 
ing to  think  of  God  as  dwelling  in  man 
rather  than  as  operating  on  man  from  with- 
out ?  This  might  be  taken  to  imply  a 
denial  or  at  least  a  doubt  of  God's  person- 
ality, and  of  man's  personality  as  distinct 
and  separate  from  God's,  and  this  impli- 
cation I  vigorously  and  energetically  disa- 
vow. If  I  speak  of  God  in  man,  it  is  as  one 
speaks  of  one  soul  working  within  another, 
so  that  the  two  personalities  intermingle, 
the  two  lives  are  intertwined.  Perhaps  it 
will  be  better  to  attempt  no  formal  state- 
ment of  the  general  principle;  rather  to 
illustrate  it  by  special  applications. 

[67] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

Revelation,  then,  appears  to  me  less  a 
sudden  disclosure  to  man  of  God,  as  some 
one  external  and  before  hidden,  than  a 
gradual  awakening  in  man  of  that  spiritual 
life  which  alone  can  take  cognizance  of 
God.  Revelation  is  the  unveiling  of  God. 
There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  discussion 
about  the  nature  of  inspiration.  Dr.  Mc- 
Connell,  formerly  of  Brooklyn,  has  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  word  "in- 
spiration "  occurs  but  twice  in  the  Bible,^ 
and  only  once  in  such  connection  that 
it  can  be  deemed  to  refer  to  Scriptural 
teaching.  The  claim  of  the  Bible  writers 
for  themselves  is  not  that  they  were  in- 
spired by  God,  but  that  they  have  made  a 
revelation  of  God.    What  does  this  mean  ? 

Revelation  is  unveiling,  and  discovery 
is  uncovering;  two  words  more  nearly 
synonymous  I  do  not  know  where  to  find. 
The  revelation  of  God  is  simply  the  un- 
veiling or  the  uncovering  or  the  discovery 
of  God.  What  the  Bible  writers  claim 
for  themselves  is  this :  "  We  have  been 
studying   life,    history,   nature,    our    own 

*  Job  xxxli,  8  5  7.  Timothy  iii,  i6. 

[68] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

personal  experiences  ;  and  we  have  found 
some  truths  about  God,  and  we  tell  you 
what  they  are."  The  word  "  discovery  " 
is  used  for  science  ;  the  word  "  revelation" 
for  theology  ;  but  they  mean  substantially 
the  same  thing  —  the  unveiling  of  the 
secret  of  life.  Science  goes  a  little  way 
in  the  search  and  stops  ;  the  prophet  goes 
further,  and  discovers  behind  all  the  forces 
and  all  the  laws  which  science  has  dis- 
covered the  Infinite  and  External  Energy 
from  which  all  things  proceed,  the  Power 
not  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness, 
—  in  a  word,  God.  Discovery  is  the  reve- 
lation of  the  laws  and  forces  operating  in 
nature.  Revelation  is  the  discovery  of 
Him  who  is  the  Lawgiver  and  the  Force- 
producer.  Discovery  is  revelation  in  the 
physical  realm ;  revelation  is  discovery  in 
the  spiritual  realm.  The  man  of  outsight, 
with  skill  in  the  observation  of  the  sensu- 
ous world,  is  a  discoverer ;  the  man  of  in- 
sight, with  skill  in  the  perception  of  the 
invisible  world,  is  a  revelator. 

God    has    given    to    different    nations 
different  missions. 

[69] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

He  has  given  to  Rome  the  mission  of 
teaching  the  world  the  meaning  of  law  ;  to 
Greece  the  meaning  of  art  and  philosophy  ; 
to  the  Hebrew  race  the  meaning  of  re- 
ligion. He  has  given  this  race  this  mes- 
sage: Tell  the  world  what  you  can  learn 
of  God  and  his  relation  to  men.  The 
Hebrew  people  have  added  nothing  to  the 
architecture,  the  art,  the  philosophy  of 
life ;  but  they  have  been  a  prophetic  race 
—  discoverers  of  God.  In  this  race  there 
were  preeminently  religious  men,  who  saw 
God  more  clearly  than  their  fellows,  and 
God's  relation  to  mankind  more  clearly, 
and  God*s  relation  to  human  events  more 
clearly,  and  told  their  fellows  what  they 
saw.  And,  from  all  their  telling,  natural 
selection  says  the  scientist,  providence  says 
the  theologian,  —  I  say  the  two  are  the 
same,  —  elected  those  that  had  in  them 
the  most  vital  truth,  the  most  enduring, 
the  most  worthy  to  endure.  Thus  we 
have  in  the  Old  Testament  something 
like  two-score  of  writers,  the  most  spirit- 
ually-minded of  a  spiritually-minded  race, 
telling  us  what  they  have  discovered  con- 
[  70] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

cerning  God.  This  is  the  Bible.  It  is 
the  gradual  discovery  of  God  in  the  hearts 
and  through  the  tongues  of  prophets  who 
were  themselves  members  of  a  prophetic 
race. 

God  is  always  revealing  himself,  and 
has  always  been  revealing  himself.  He 
has  always  been  knocking  at  the  door ;  he 
has  always  been  standing  at  the  window. 
He  has  always  been  showing  his  charac- 
ter. They  who  have  seen  it  best  and  most 
clearly,  and  had  power  to  tell  us  what 
they  have  seen,  are  the  world's  prophets. 
What  is  distinctive  in  respect  to  Hebrew 
law  is  not  its  universal  applicability  to  the 
human  race  —  there  is  a  great  deal  in  the 
Hebrew  law  to  which  we  no  longer  pay 
any  attention ;  it  is  the  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  God  is  the  great  lawgiver.  What 
is  peculiar  in  the  Hebrew  history  is  not 
its  narration  of  great  battles,  great  states- 
men's endeavors  and  achievements ;  it  is 
the  history  of  the  dealing  of  God  with  a 
particular  people.  God  is  as  truly  with 
the  American  race  as  he  ever  was  with 
the  Hebrew  race  ;  as  truly  with  Abraham 

[71  ] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

Lincoln  as  he  was  with  Moses.  The 
difference  between  the  Hebrew  race  and 
the  American  race  is  the  difference  be- 
tween the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  and 
the  modern  newspaper.  The  modern 
newspaper  is  enterprising,  and  it  gathers 
news,  and  gathers  gossip  that  is  not  news, 
from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe ;  but 
it  fails  to  see  God  in  human  history.  The 
Old  Testament  prophets  did  not  show  the 
same  enterprise,  did  not  have  the  same 
wideness  of  view ;  but  they  did  see  God  in 
human  history,  and  have  helped  us  to  see 
him.  That  vision  of  God  is  equally  char- 
acteristic of  the  fiction  of  the  Bible  — 
Ruth,  Esther,  Jonah,  the  parable  of  the 
prodigal  son  (there  are  some  people  who 
think  it  is  irreverent  to  suggest  that  there 
is  any  fiction  in  the  Old  Testament,  but 
quite  right  to  find  it  in  the  words  of  Christ 
in  the  New),  and  of  the  drama  of  the 
Bible  —  the  epic  drama  of  Job,  the  love 
drama  of  the  Song  of  Songs.  In  these  is 
seen  a  manifestation,  a  revelation  of  good- 
ness and  truth  and  righteousness,  and, 
above  all,  of  a  personal  God  dealing  with 
[  72] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

men.  This  is  the  characteristic  of  the 
Hebrew  poetry.  We  find  more  beautiful 
phrasing  in  Wordsworth,  or  in  Tennyson, 
or  in  Longfellow,  or  in  Whittier,  but  no- 
where do  you  find  in  literature,  ancient  or 
modern,  such  discoveries  of  God  as  in  the 
Hebrew  Psalter.  The  "  Eternal  Good- 
ness"  may  seem  to  you  more  beautiful 
than  the  One  Hundred  and  Third  Psalm  ; 
but  would  Whittier  have  written  "  Eternal 
Goodness  "  if  he  had  not  read  the  One 
Hundred  and  Third  Psalm  ? 

But  if  this  be  so,  and  the  Bible  be  a 
revelation  and  disclosure  of  God,  why  not 
new  revelations  ?  Why  not  new  disclos- 
ures ?  Why  not  a  new  Bible  ?  If  the 
American  continent  was  discovered  by 
Columbus,  why  does  not  some  one  dis- 
cover a  new  continent  ?  Because  we  have 
discovered  all  the  continents  there  are. 
What  is  it  that  this  Bible  tells  us  about 
God,  the  Infinite  and  the  Eternal  Energy 
from  which  all  things  proceed,  the  Power 
not  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness  ? 
Sum  it  all  up,  put  it  in  the  briefest  state- 
ment ;  what  does  it  tell  us  respecting  God.f* 

[73] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

God  is  love.  Love  is  service.  The 
highest  manifestation  of  service  is  self- 
sacrifice.  The  highest  self-sacrifice  is  the 
laying  down  of  one's  life  for  the  sake  of 
the  wholly  undeserving. 

Is  there  anything  to  be  added  to  that 
message  ?  Can  you  conceive  of  any  state- 
ment respecting  the  Infinite  and  Eternal 
Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed,  the 
Power  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness, beyond  these  four  declarations 
—  first,  this  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  is 
love  ;  second,  this  love  shows  itself  in  un- 
paid service ;  third,  this  service  runs  be- 
yond all  self-glorification  into  self-sacrifice  ; 
and,  last  of  all,  this  self-sacrifice  shows  it- 
self in  laying  down  life  that  the  undeserving 
may  walk  along  the  prostrate  form  up  to 
the  eternal  heights  of  glory  ?  If  any  one 
has  another  revelation,  let  him  bring  it. 

But  there  is  opportunity,  infinite  op- 
portunity, for  added  disclosure  of  God, 
added  revelation  of  God,  in  the  unfolding 
and  application  of  this  truth  to  the  experi- 
ences of  the  nation,  the  church,  and  the 
individual.     If  it  were  not  so,  you  and  I 

[74] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

could  not  go  on  preaching  upon  this  Bible. 
If  there  were  not  revelations  in  the  Bible 
that  the  Bible  writers  themselves  did  not 
fully  comprehend  ;  if  there  were  not  reve- 
lations in  the  Bible  that  all  the  past  has 
not  discovered  ;  if  we  were  not  continually- 
finding  new  meanings  in  old  texts;  if  God 
was  not  continually  rewriting  his  Bible  in 
our  experience,  and  giving  us  a  new  mes- 
sage to  new  generations,  we  might  well 
close  our  church  doors  and  stop  our 
preaching.  We  preachers  are  not  to  stop 
at  the  revelation  which  God  has  made  of 
himself  to  others;  we  are  to  take  that 
revelation  that  he  may  be  revealed  to  us 
and  by  us.  The  Bible  is  a  guide  to  reve- 
lation, not  a  substitute  for  it.  Only  as  we 
so  use  the  Bible  that  we  stop  not  at  the 
book,  but  go  through  the  book  to  the 
God  who  gave  it  forth,  are  we  worthy  to 
be  prophets  and  preachers  in  this  nine- 
teenth century. 

The  forgiveness  of  sins  is,  in  my  think- 
ing of  it,  no  longer  an  exceptional,  epi- 
sodical   manifestation    of  a    supernatural 
grace ;  it  is  the  revelation  and  effect  of  the 
[75] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

habit  of  mind  of  the  Eternal  Father  toward 
all  his  children.  The  laws  of  forgiveness 
are  a  part  of  the  laws  of  the  Almighty  and 
the  All-gracious.  It  is  said  that  the  vio- 
lation of  natural  law  is  never  forgiven.  It 
is  said  that  if  you  put  your  finger  in  the 
candle,  it  will  burn,  pray  as  you  will, 
and  if  you  fall  from  your  horse,  you  will 
break  a  bone,  however  pious  you  may  be ; 
whether  the  bone  breaks  or  not  depends, 
not  upon  your  piety,  but  upon  your  age. 
Is  it  indeed  true  that  there  is  no  forgive- 
ness in  natural  law  ?  What  a  strange- 
looking  audience  this  would  be  if  there 
were  none.  The  boy  cuts  his  finger  and 
nature  begins  to  heal  it;  he  breaks  his 
arm  —  nature  begins  to  knit  the  bone ; 
he  burns  his  finger  —  nature  provides  a 
new  skin.  Nature,  that  is,  God,  implants 
in  man  himself  the  help-giving  powers 
that  remove  disease ;  and,  in  addition, 
stores  the  world  full  of  remedies  also,  so 
that  specifics  may  be  found  for  almost 
every  disease  to  which  flesh  is  heir.  The 
laws  of  healing  are  wrought  into  the  phys- 
ical realm ;  they  are  a  part  of  the  divine 

[76] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

economy ;  and  shall  we  think  that  He 
who  helps  the  man  to  a  new  skin  and  to 
a  new  bone  cares  nothing  for  his  moral 
nature,  and  will  not  help  him  when  he  has 
fallen  into  sin  ? 

Forgiveness  of  sin  is  not  remission  of 
penalty.  It  may  include  that,  or  it  may 
not;  but  it  is  not  that.  Redemption  is 
not  letting  a  man  out  of  one  place  and 
putting  him  into  another ;  it  is  not  barring 
the  doors  of  hell  and  throwing  open  the 
doors  of  heaven.  The  phrase  used  in  the 
Greek  Testament  for  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  is  two  Greek  words  meaning  sending 
away  of  sin  ;  and  I  believe  I  am  right, 
though  I  make  the  statement  with  some 
hesitation,  that  that  Greek  phrase,  the 
sending  away  of  sin,  is  never  used  in  clas- 
sical Greek  to  signify  forgiveness,  and  is 
always  used  in  the  New  Testament  Greek 
to  signify  forgiveness.  Two  men  are  ar- 
rested and  are  brought  before  a  New 
York  court ;  one  is  sent  to  Elmira  Re- 
formatory, where  he  must  stay  until  he  is 
cured ;  one  is  sent  to  Sing  Sing  for  ten 
years.     The  one  who  is  sent  to  Sing  Sing 

[77] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

has  political  influence  and  gets  a  pardon 
after  he  has  been  there  three  months,  and 
comes  out  to  plunge  into  thievery  again  ; 
the  other  man  stays  ten  years  in  Elmira 
Reformatory,  and  comes  out  an  honest 
man,  to  live  an  honest  life.  Which  of 
these  men  is  redeemed  ?  —  the  man  who 
escapes  the  penalty  and  continues  in  the 
sin,  or  the  man  who  is  delivered  from  the 
sin  and  bears  the  penalty  ?  Forgiveness 
is  not  remission  of  penalty,  though  it  may 
include  that.  Forgiveness  is  remission 
of  the  sin  itself;  and  God  is  always  lifting 
off  the  sins  of  the  world.  "  Though  your 
sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  "  —  the  sins  them- 
selves — "  shall  be  white  as  snow."  "  This 
is  my  blood  of  the  new  testament,  which 
is  shed  for  many  for  the  remission  of"  — 
penalty  ?  No  !  —  "  the  remission  of  sin." 
I  no  longer  believe  that  Christ  died  that 
he  might  bear  the  penalty  which  a  just 
God  must  inflict  because  law  required  it ; 
I  beUeve  he  died  that  he  might  give  life 
by  his  death  —  the  remission,  not  of  pen- 
alty, but  of  the  sin  itself  "  Behold,"  says 
John,  "  the  Lamb  of  God  which  taketh 
[78] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

away  the  sin  of  the  world."  Oh,  how  we 
belittle  Scripture  !  I  used  to  think  that 
text  meant.  Behold,  the  Lamb  of  God 
which  takes  away  some  sins  from  some 
men,  in  some  parts  of  the  world.  No ! 
He  is  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  is  taking 
away  the  sin  from  the  world,  and  when  his 
work  is  done  the  end  will  be  a  sinless 
world. 

I  no  longer  think  of  sacrifice  as  one  act 
done  on  man's  behalf  by  the  Son  of  God 
to  propitiate  divine  wrath  or  satisfy  divine 
law.  I  believe  not  less  but  more  pro- 
foundly in  sacrifice  since  I  have  come  to 
think  of  it  as  the  law  of  spiritual  life,  and 
of  Christ  as  the  Lamb  of  God  slain  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world.  For  the 
phrase  "  suffering  love  "  appears  to  me  to 
be  tautology.  Love  must  suffer  so  long 
as  the  loved  one  sins  or  suffers.  So  long 
as  God  is  love  and  his  children  sin  and 
suffer,  God  suffers  with  and  for  them. 
The  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  the  revelation  of 
a  sacrifice  which  will  not  end  till  sin  and 
suffering  shall  be  no  more.  From  the 
hour  when  Eve  looked  with  puzzled  an- 
[  79] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 


guish  into  the  unresponsive  face  of  Abel, 
marble-like  in  the  mystery  of  death,  and 
then  went  out  in  the  unutterable  long- 
ings of  a  mother's  heart  after  the  fugitive 
brother,  down  to  this  hour,  love  has  suf- 
fered for  the  stricken  and  for  the  sinful, 
and  through  anguished  and  broken  hearts 
has  poured  itself  out  in  sacrifice  to  save. 
Vicarious  sacrifice  is  the  law  of  life ;  that 
is,  it  is  the  law  of  God's  own  nature. 
The  divinest  thing  man  ever  does  is  to 
suffer  for  another  ;  and  the  divinest  form  of 
sacrifice  is  that  suflFered  for  the  unworthy; 
and  its  greatest  triumph  is  won  when, 
through  sacrifice,  the  unworthy  becomes 
worthy.  The  long  history  of  love's  sac- 
rifices seems  to  me  the  history  of  God's 
love  dwelling  in  human  hearts  and  in- 
spiring human  lives  to  their  highest  and 
divinest  service ;  and  the  sacrifice  of  Christ 
seems  to  me  the  climacteric  expression  of 
that  love,  the  supreme  revelation  of  God's 
life,  the  supreme  gift  of  God's  life.  The 
sacrifice  is  offered  not  by  nor  on  behalf 
of  man  to  God,  but  by  God  for  the  life 
of  man ;  it  is  not  the  condition  on  which 
[80] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

God  grants  forgiveness,  but  the  method 
by  which  he  forgives  —  that  is,  deHvers 
his  children  from  the  death  of  sin  by  im- 
parting to  them  the  life  of  holiness.  As 
the  truth  of  God  is  revealed  in  all  the 
teachings  of  prophets,  as  the  benevolence 
of  God  is  revealed  in  all  the  philanthro- 
pies of  the  humane,  so  the  deeper  love  of 
God  is  revealed  in  all  the  sacrificial  love 
of  earth's  vicarious  sufferers.  And  as 
Christ  is  the  consummation  of  the  revela- 
tion of  the  truth  of  God  by  his  teaching, 
and  of  the  benevolence  of  God  by  his  ser- 
vice, so  is  he  the  consummation  of  the 
deeper  love  of  God  by  his  suffering  and 
sacrifice. 

Incarnation:  what  is  that?  God  was 
in  Christ.  Why  ?  Christ  said  of  himself, 
"  I  am  the  door."  A  door  is  not  to  be 
simply  looked  at;  you  push  it  open  and 
go  in.  Why  was  God  in  Christ  ?  Why 
was  Christ  a  door  ?  In  order  that  through 
Christ  God  might  enter  into  the  human 
race  and  the  human  race  might  enter  into 
Christ. 

In  my  friend's  house  on  the  Hudson 
[  8i  ] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 


River  is  a  window  framed  in  as  though  it 
were  a  picture  ;  one  opening  the  door  and 
coming  into  that  room  and  looking,  sees, 
as  though  hanging  on  the  wall,  a  picture, 
including  the  mountains,  the  valley,  the 
river,  the  distant  city.  I  imagine  two 
persons  coming  in  and  looking  at  that 
picture ;  one  saying,  "  This  is  an  image 
of  the  landscape  hand-painted;  *'  the  other, 
"  No,  that  is  the  real  mountain,  the  real 
valley,  the  real  river,  seen  through  a  glass." 
The  one  no  less  than  the  other  thinks  the 
real  is  represented.  That  seems  to  me 
fairly  to  represent  the  difference  between 
the  liberal  Congregationalist  and  the  ortho- 
dox Unitarian.  The  orthodox  Unitarian 
looks  at  the  picture  on  the  wall,  and  says, 
"  That  is  not  the  image  of  God,  but  it 
looks  exactly  like  him."  Now,  I  am 
orthodox;  I  believe  that  through  the 
window  I  see  God  himself  in  Jesus  Christ. 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  image  of  God,  the  re- 
flection of  God,  God  manifest  in  the  flesh  ; 
that  is,  such  a  manifestation  of  God  as  is 
possible  in  a  human  life.  I  never  say,  I 
never  should  say,  Jesus  Christ  is  God, 
[82] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

because  what  I  said  a  few  moments  ago, 
and  you  then  agreed  with  me,  I  repeat 
now,  when  some  of  you  will  not  agree 
with   me :   God  is  more  than  the  sum 

OF       ALL       HIS       manifestations.  JeSUS 

Christ  is  one  of  the  manifestations  of 
God,  but  God  is  more  than  the  sum  of 
all  his  manifestations/  You  hear  a  great 
preacher  like  Phillips  Brooks,  and  you 
say,  "  I  have  heard  Phillips  Brooks."  I 
beg  your  pardon  —  you  have  heard  one 
little  bit  of  Phillips  Brooks.  He  is  a 
great  deal  more  than  any  sermon  he  ever 
preached  ;  and  if  you  gather  all  his  ser- 
mons together  and  read  them  all,  still  there 
are  in  him  resources  that  you  have  not 
seen.  When  I  look  at  the  one  transcend- 
ent historical  manifestation  of  God  in 
Jesus    Christ    tabernacling   in    the    flesh, 

*  The  question  of  the  tri-personallty  of  God,  —  the 
Trinity  of  Person  as  distinguished  from  the  Trinity  of 
manifestation,  —  including  the  question  of  the  conscious 
preexistence  of  the  Logos,  it  did  not  come  within  the 
province  of  this  address  to  discuss.  Personally,  I  accept 
the  Trinitarian  view  of  tri-personality  ;  that  is,  that  the 
Trinity  of  manifestation  apparent  to  us  has  a  basis  in  a 
Trinity  of  Person  necessarily  hidden  from  us. 

[83] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

there  is  no  praise  I  would  give  to  the 
Father  that  I  will  not  give  to  him,  no 
prayer  I  will  direct  to  the  Father  that  I 
will  not  direct  to  him,  no  reverence  I  will 
show  to  the  Father  that  I  will  not  show 
to  him ;  and  yet,  when  I  am  asked  of  my 
philosophy.  Is  Jesus  Christ  God?  I  re- 
ply, God  is  more  than  the  sum  of  all  his 
manifestations,  and,  therefore,  God  is  more 
than  Jesus  Christ.  Jesus  Christ  is  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh,  and  God  entering 
into  that  flesh  in  order  that  he  may  enter 
into  the  whole  of  humanity  —  God  in 
man. 

The  question  is  sometimes  asked  — 
it  was  asked,  I  remember,  a  few  years 
ago  of  a  young  theological  student  in  the 
State  of  Maine  — "  Do  you  think  the 
divinity  of  Jesus  Christ  differs  in  kind  or 
differs  in  degree  from  the  divinity  of  man?" 
He  replied,  "In  degree."  For  that  he  was 
sharply  called  to  account  by  the  "  Ad- 
vance," and  we  asked  in  the  "  Outlook," 
"Will  the  'Advance'  tell  us  how  the 
divinity  in  man  differs  in  kind  from  the 
divinity   in    God  ? "    and    never    got   an 

[84] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

answer.  There  are  not  two  kinds  of  di- 
vinity. If  there  are,  then  there  are  two 
kinds  of  God.  That  is  polytheism.  There 
is  only  one  divine  patience,  righteousness, 
one  divine  justice,  one  divine  love,  one 
divine  mercy.  The  divinity  in  man  is  the 
same  in  kind  as  the  divinity  in  Christ, 
because  it  is  the  same  in  kind  as  the  di- 
vinity in  God.  We  are  made  in  God's 
image.  That  means  that  we  are  in  kind 
like  God.  It  is  sin,  and  only  sin,  which 
makes  us  unlike  him.  We  are  children 
of  God.  That  means  that  our  natures 
are  themselves  begotten  of  him,  flow  forth 
from  him.  A  sinless  man  would  be  the 
image  of  the  Eternal  Father,  because  the 
child  of  the  Eternal  Father,  begotten  of 
God.  God  has  come  into  Christ  and  filled 
that  one  life  full  of  himself,  so  that  when 
you  look  at  it  you  look  through  the  glass 
and  see  the  Father  ;  and  this  he  has  done 
in  order  that  he  may  come  into  your  life 
and  my  life  ;  in  order  that  he  may  dwell 
in  us  and  fill  us  full  of  himself. 

If  one  objects  to  the  statement  that  God 
is  incarnating  himself  in  the  human  race  I 

[85] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

Will  not  use  the  phraseology,  because  I  will 
not  shock  people's  minds  needlessly  ;  but 
I  believe  that  God  came  into  Christ  and 
filled  Christ  full  of  himself  in  order  that 
he  might  come  unto  us  and  fill  us  full  of 
himself.  And  so  1  dare  to  try  to  go  where 
he  leads  ;  and  when  he  climbs  those  moun- 
tain heights,  stands  so  far  above  me,  and 
still  beckons  and  calls  down  to  me,  and 
says,  "  Lyman  Abbott,  follow  me,"  I  be- 
lieve I  can,  or  he  would  not  call  me  ;  he 
would  not  tell  me  to  go  if  he  would  not 
give  me  the  power  to  go.  And  so  I  dare 
to  pray,  though  as  with  bated  breath,  the 
prayer  which  Paul  has  taught  us  :  "  That 
Christ  may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by  faith  ; 
that  ye,  being  rooted  and  grounded  in  love, 
may  be  able  to  comprehend  with  all  saints 
what  is  the  breadth,  and  length,  and  depth, 
and  height;  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ, 
which  passeth  knowledge,  that  ye  might  be 
filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God." 

It  seems  to  me,  then,  that  the  relation 

of  nature  and  the  supernatural  to  Christian 

thought  has  undergone  a  great  change  in 

the  last    half  century  ;    and    that  it  is  a 

[86] 


GOD    IN    NATURE 

change  which  promotes  Christian  life,  be- 
cause it  brings  God  nearer  to  us  in  our 
Christian  thought,  and  makes  religion 
seem  more  natural  and  more  real.  In 
the  thought  of  to-day  God  is  not  apart 
from  nature  and  life,  but  in  nature  and 
life ;  creation  is  continuous ;  all  events 
are  providential ;  revelation  is  progres- 
sive ;  forgiveness  is  through  law,  not  in 
violation  of  it ;  sacrifice  is  the  divine 
method  of  life-giving;  incarnation  is  not 
consummated  until  God  dwells  in  all  hu- 
manity and  Jesus  Christ  is  seen  to  be  the 
first-born  among  many  brethren.  Then, 
when  God's  work  is  done,  and  he  is 
everywhere,  —  as  he  is  now  everywhere 
but  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  will  not 
have  him,  —  when  he  is  in  human  hearts 
and  lives,  as  he  has  been  in  all  nature  and 
in  all  history,  then  will  come  the  end,  and 
God  will  be  all  and  in  all. 


[87] 


Ill 

GOD   IN    HUMANITY 


Ill 

GOD  IN  HUMANITY^ 

MANY  converging  tendencies  have 
operated  to  bring  about  a  time 
peculiarly  adapted  for  great  spiritual  work 
in  and  through  the  Christian  Church.  We 
have  already  entered  upon  an  epoch,  in- 
tellectual, social,  spiritual,  which  we  can 
make  an  epoch  of  the  greatest  spiritual 
movement  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

When  Christianity  passed  over  into 
Europe,  it  found  Europe  dominated  by 
a  great  imperialistic  system.  Caesar  was 
the  supreme  authority.  His  edicts  were 
absolute  law  —  ecclesiastical,  civil,  political 
law  —  throughout  the  empire.  He  was 
represented  by  a  host  of  subordinates, 
who  were  simply  the  instruments  to  in- 
terpret and  execute  these  laws.  He  was 
absolutely  inaccessible  to  the  great  multi- 
tude of  the  citizens   of  the   Roman  Em- 

1  Copyright,  1905,  by  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Co. 

[91] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

pire  ;  they  could  come  to  him  only  through 
his  subordinates,  who  were  mediators  be- 
tween the  people  and  the  Emperor.  Chris- 
tianity, entering  into  Europe  and  pervading 
it,  adopted,  naturally,  as  its  ecclesiastical 
machinery,  this  framework  of  government. 
The  pagan  Roman  Empire  was  trans- 
formed, as  Mr.  Bryce  has  well  shown  us, 
into  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  Caesar 
became  the  Pope ;  the  prefects  and  sub- 
prefects  became  bishops  and  archbishops 
and  rectors  and  curates  ;  but  the  essential 
principle  of  the  ecclesiastical  system  re- 
mained what  the  essential  principle  of  the 
political  system  had  been  —  absolute  im- 
perialism. The  Pope  was  the  vicar  and 
representative  of  Almighty  God  —  the 
supreme  and  absolute  authority.  The 
decrees  of  the  Vatican  were  the  laws  of 
God.  The  bishops  and  archbishops  and 
curates  and  rectors  were  the  representatives 
of  this  Caesar.  They  were  the  mediators 
between  him  and  the  people. 

At  the  same  time  Christianity  was  modi- 
fied in  its  thinking,  or  rather  was  trans- 
formed in  its  thinking,  by  this  imperialistic 
[92] 


.  ^ 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

system.  The  Hebrews  were  not  philoso- 
phers. The  Old  Testament  contains  no 
philosophy  ;  the  New  Testament  contains 
very  little,  except  such  as  is  to  be  found  in 
Paul's  Epistles,  and  not  a  great  deal  even 
there.  But  when  Christianity  passed  over 
into  Europe  it  took  on  a  philosophic  form, 
and  in  Rome  the  Roman  and  therefore 
the  imperialistic  form.  God  was  con- 
ceived of  as  a  celestial  Caesar,  sitting  in  the 
centre  of  the  universe  and  ruling  it.  The 
Church  was  the  representative  of  this  divine 
Caesar.  The  laws  of  God  were  edicts  issued 
from  him  and  handed  down  to  men.  This 
God  was  inaccessible  to  the  great  majority 
of  men  :  they  had  no  ears  to  hear  him,  no 
capacity  to  reach  him ;  they  must  reach 
him  through  mediators.  First  was  Christ, 
the  divine  Mediator.  But  Christ  was  too 
holy  and  too  remote.  Next  there  was  the 
Mother  of  God,  as  the  mediator  through 
whom  to  come  to  the  Christ ;  but  she  was 
too  holy  and  too  remote.  Then  there  were 
saints  to  come  to  the  Mother  of  God,  and 
priests  to  come  to  the  saints.  And  so  the 
individual  came  to  the  priest,  and  the  priest 

[93] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

to  the  saints,  and  the  saints  to  the  Mother 
of  God,  and  the  Mother  of  God  to  Christ, 
and  Christ  to  the  Eternal.  The  Eternal 
was  an  absentee  God,  dwelling  in  a  far-off 
world.  Law  issued  from  him ;  sin  was 
disobedience  to  that  law ;  forgiveness  was 
remission  of  the  penalty  for  violating  that 
law ;  access  to  him  was  only  through  a 
throng  of  mediators. 

The  Reformation  broke  down  the  ec- 
clesiastical system  for  the  Reformers  and 
the  children  of  the  Reformers.  The  Prot- 
estant world  said,  "  The  Pope  is  not  the 
vicar  of  God ;  the  Church  is  not  the  su- 
preme and  final  authority."  The  Church 
had  held  to  the  sacredness  of  the  Bible, 
but  to  the  Bible  as  the  constitution  of 
the  Church.  It  was  not  for  the  common 
people  ;  it  was  for  the  Church ;  and  the 
Church  was  to  interpret  it  and  to  declare 
its  meaning.  The  Protestant  Reformers 
went  back  of  the  Church,  of  the  priest- 
hood, of  the  human  mediators,  to  the 
Bible.  They  said,  "  Any  man  may  take 
this  constitution  ;  any  man  may  interpret 
it."     But  still  Protestantism  accepted  and 

[94] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

adopted  —  unconsciously,  perhaps  —  the 
notion  of  an  absentee  God.  Still  God 
was  conceived  of  as  enthroned  in  the 
centre  of  the  universe,  as  the  Moral  Gov- 
ernor ;  and  laws  as  edicts  issued  from  him  ; 
and  sin  as  disobedience  to  those  laws  ;  and 
forgiveness  as  remission  of  a  future  pen- 
alty ;  and  the  Bible  as  the  book  of  his 
laws,  and  an  authoritative  statement  of 
certain  conditions  precedent  to  obtaining 
that  forgiveness. 

But  presently  there  began  to  come  an- 
other set  of  influences  weakening  the  belief 
that  the  Bible  is  an  ultimate  and  supreme 
authority.  First  came  geology,  with  its 
message  that  the  world  was  not  made  in 
six  days.  The  Church  replied,  "  Six  days 
does  not  mean  six  days  ;  it  means  six  long 
periods/'  Then  came  anthropology,  with 
its  message  that  man  was  not  created  six 
thousand  years  ago ;  that  he  has  been  on 
the  earth  at  least  ten  or  fifteen  or  twenty 
thousand  years.  The  Church  replied, "The 
Bible  is  not  authority  on  matters  of  chro- 
nology." Then  came  evolutionary  science, 
with  its  message  that  man  was  not  made  per- 

[95] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

feet ;  he  has  been  developed  gradually,  like 
all  other  animals,  from  a  germ.  And  then 
the  Church  replied  —  nothing.  Then  fol- 
lowed literary  criticism.  It  analyzed  this 
Bible,  and  compared  it  with  other  litera- 
tures, and  announced  its  conclusions : 
These  laws  of  Moses  were  not  handed 
down  complete,  once  for  all ;  they  are 
composed  of  various  elements  which  can 
be  distinguished ;  this  code  of  laws  was 
gradually  produced,  and  the  progress  of 
their  gradual  development  can  be  traced. 
Then  came  the  study  of  comparative  re- 
ligions, with  its  message  :  We  can  find  the 
Hebraic  legends  of  creation  and  fall  and 
deluge  in  the  older  religions  of  Egypt,  of 
Phoenicia,  and  of  Assyria.  Little  by  little 
the  Protestant  faith  that  the  Bible  is  the 
supreme  and  final  authority  was  weakened, 
and  for  some  destroyed.  Whether  we  like 
it  or  not,  that  lessening  of  the  authority  of 
the  Book  as  a  book  must  be  recognized. 
We  have  only  to  compare  the  sermons  of 
the  great  orthodox  preachers  of  the  past 
and  the  present  to  see  the  difference  of 
appeal. 

[96] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

While  this  process  was  going  on  within 
the  churches,  there  was  going  on  a  process 
without,  subtle,  powerful,  irresistible.  Sci- 
ence was  attacking  the  notion  of  an  absentee 
God,  a  God  who  can  be  defined,  described, 
analyzed,  interpreted  in  creeds.  Science, 
which,  first,  showed  how  vast  the  universe 
was;  which,  secondly,  showed  how  the 
universe  was  all  one  ;  which,  third,  showed 
that  the  same  forces  were  at  work  in  this 
world  and  in  the  remotest  sun  and  in  this 
epoch  and  in  the  remotest  epoch,  so  that 
all  days  are  equally  creative,  undermined 
the  notion  of  a  celestial  Caesar  sitting  on  a 
celestial  throne  afar  off,  creating  matter  and 
force  out  of  nothing,  and  laws  to  govern 
them,  and  leaving  them  to  their  own  oper- 
ation with  occasional  interventions  on  his 
part.  Then  came  history.  History  had 
been  mere  annals,  the  mere  story  of  events, 
the  mere  record  of  lives.  Voltaire,  I  think, 
was  the  first  one  to  portray  history  as  a 
development  of  life.  He  was  followed 
by  others,  —  Mommsen,  Curtis,  Arnold, 
Buckle,  Macaulay,  Green.  All  these  men 
differed  from  the  old  classical  historians  in 

[97] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

tracing  history  as  a  gradual  process  of  de- 
velopment—  the  widening  out  and  the 
upbuilding  of  humanity  —  and  in  thus 
showing  a  divine  development  in  human- 
ity as  science  had  shown  it  in  nature.  Then 
came  literature  and  the  study  of  compara- 
tive literatures,  the  literatures  of  Greece 
and  Rome  and  Italy  and  England,  and 
last,  but  not  least,  of  the  Hebrew  people, 
and  of  the  common  life  of  man  that  ani- 
mates them  all  and  underlies  them  all ; 
and  the  discovery  (for  it  was  almost  a  dis- 
covery) that  remorse  is  as  universal  as  the 
human  race,  and  forgiveness  as  universal, 
and  love  and  pity  and  sympathy  as  uni- 
versal ;  and  that  underneath  all  nations 
and  all  races  and  in  all  eras  there  beats, 
not  merely  one  blood,  but  one  human, 
palpitating,  emotive  life.  This  process 
has  been  resisted  by  some  men  in  the 
Church  and  feared  by  more  ;  but  the  re- 
sistance has  been  in  vain  and  the  fears 
have  been  needless.  For  it  has  been  a 
divinely  ordered  process  toward  a  pro- 
founder  faith,  a  larger  hope,  and  a  closer 
and  tenderer  love. 

[98] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

Among  the  cartoons  of  Raphael  is  one 
representing  the  creation.  A  venerable 
gentleman  is  represented  as  seated  cross- 
legged  upon  the  ground,  with  the  various 
portions  .of  a  child's  Noah's  Ark  before 
him,  putting  the  different  parts  of  the  ani- 
mals together.  It  was  a  great  artist's  con- 
ception of  a  divine  creation.  That  notion 
of  an  absentee  God  —  an  imperial  Caesar 
sitting  in  the  centre  of  the  universe  ruling 
things,  whose  edicts  are  laws,  who  is  ap- 
proached jonly  from  afar  by  men  —  that  is 
gone,  or  going.  There  are  some  of  us 
who  still  cling  to  it,  and  to  whom  the  re- 
moval of  that  image  seems  like  atheism ; 
some  that  are  trying  to  cling  to  it,  though 
their  grasp  is  loosening;  some  that  are 
trying  to  make  themselves  believe  that 
they  still  believe  in  it ;  but  it  has  gone,  or 
IS  going.  Not  merely  the  final  authority  of 
the  Church  is  undermined  ;  not  merely 
the  authority  of  the  Book  as  an  ultimate 
court  of  appeal  is  lessened ;  but  the  con- 
ception of  a  God  sitting  in  the  centre  of 
the  universe  ruling  things,  as  an  imperial 
Caesar  sits  in  Rome  ruling  things  —  that 

[99] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

also  IS  growing  dim  or  absolutely  disap- 
pearing.    What  is  coming  in  its  place  ? 

I  am  not  going  to  ask  the  theologians 
what  is  coming  in  its  place ;  I  will  first 
ask  the  scientists. 

Herbert  Spencer  was  not,  in  my  opin- 
ion, a  great  philosopher;  but  he  was  a 
great  interpreter  of  the  philosophic  ten- 
dency of  his  times;  and  this  is  Herbert 
Spencer's  answer  to  the  question,  what  will 
science  put  in  the  place  of  this  conception 
of  a  divine  Caesar  sitting  in  a  celestial  robe : 

But  one  truth  must  ever  grow  clearer  —  the 
truth  that  there  is  an  Inscrutable  Existence 
everywhere  manifested,  to  which  we  can  neither 
find  nor  conceive  either  beginning  or  end. 
Amid  the  mysteries  which  become  the  more 
mysterious  the  more  they  are  thought  about, 
there  will  remain  this  one  absolute  certainty, 
that  we  are  ever  in  the  presence  of  an  In- 
finite and  Eternal  Energy,  from  which  all  things 
proceed. 

What  has  science  to  offer  ?  This  :  that 
we  are  ever  in  the  presence  of  an  Infinite 
and  Eternal  Energy,  from  which  all  things 

[    100  ] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

proceed.  No  longer  an  absentee  God ; 
no  longer  a  Great  First  Cause,  setting  in 
motion  secondary  causes  which  frame  the 
world ;  no  longer  a  divine  mechanic,  who 
has  built  the  world,  stored  it  with  forces, 
launched  it  upon  its  course,  and  now  and 
again  interferes  with  its  operation  if  it  goes 
not  right;  but  one  great,  eternal,  under- 
lying Cause,  as  truly  operative  to-day  as 
he  was  in  that  first  day  when  the  morning 
stars  sang  together  —  every  day  a  creative 
day.     That  is  the  word  of  science. 

What  is  the  word  of  history  ?  The  his- 
torian tells  us  there  is  a  progress  in  human 
development,  and  that  history  illustrates 
that  progress,  and  that  not  only  the  indi- 
vidual man  grows  from  babyhood  to  man- 
hood, but  the  whole  race  of  men  grow 
from  infantile  beginnings  to  a  future,  we 
know  not  what.  Is  there  any  meaning  in 
this?  Is  there  any  power  behind  it  ?  And 
what  does  this  power  mean  ?  And,  again, 
we  turn  to  a  historian,  not  a  theologian,  — 
not  even  an  orthodox  historian,  —  to  Mat- 
thew Arnold.  He  tells  that  the  one  thing 
history  makes  sure  is  that  there  is  a  power 

[    lOI    ] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 


not  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness ;  a  power  to-day  at  work  in  the  world 
as  truly  and  as  efficaciously  as  ever  in  the 
past ;  that  the  evolutionary  processes  that 
are  going  on  are  making  for  righteousness. 
Finally,  we  turn  to  literature,  and  we 
ask  one  of  the  great  poets  to  tell  us  what 
is  to  take  the  place  of  this  Romanized 
conception  of  an  absentee  God.  What 
has  human  experience  to  tell  ?  What  word 
have  the  men  of  vision  to  bring  back  to  us 
as  the  product  of  their  insight  into  human 
life  ?     And  this  is  Tennyson's  reply  :  — - 

*'  The  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars,  the  seas,  the  hills  and 

the  plains. 
Are  not  these,  O  soul,  the  vision  of  Him  who  reigns  ? 
Dark  is  the  world  to  thee  ;   thyself  art  the  reason 

why; 
For  is  He  not  all  but  that  which  has  power  to  feel, 

I  am  I  ? 
Glory  about  thee,  without  thee  ;  and  thou  fulfillest 

thy  doom. 
Making  Him  broken  gleams,  and  a  stifled  splendor 

and  gloom. 
Speak  to  Him,  thou,  for  He  hears,  and  spirit  with 

spirit  can  meet  ; 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  or 

feet.'* 

[    102   ] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

The  notion  of  a  humanized  God,  sitting 
in  the  centre  of  the  universe  ruling  things, 
is  gone ;  and  in  the  place  of  it  science  has 
brought  us  back  this :  "  We  are  ever  in 
the  presence  of  the  Infinite;"  and  history- 
has  brought  us  back  this :  "  There  is  a 
power  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness ;  "  and  literature  has  brought  us 
back  this  :  "  Spirit  with  spirit  can  meet ; 
closer  is  He  than  breathing,  nearer  than 
hands  or  feet." 

Am  I  then  a  pantheist  ?  Is  this  panthe- 
ism ?  I  suppose  there  are  a  great  many- 
persons  who  do  feel  that  this  changed 
conception  of  God  is  going  to  destroy 
the  personality  of  the  Divine.     Is  it.^^ 

Go  into  a  great  cathedral,  as  St.  PauFs 
or  St.  Peter's.  As  you  look  on  these 
great  pillars,  on  this  great  dome,  this 
splendid  architecture,  you  say :  I  see  here 
the  fruit  of  the  personality  of  Wren  or  of 
Michael  Angelo ;  I  am  looking  on  some- 
thing more  than  stones  and  mortar  ;  1  am 
looking  on  the  work  of  a  great  mind  and 
a  great  heart.  But  now  imagine  for  one 
moment  that  as  you  stood  there  you  could 
[  103  ] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

see  stone  reared  upon  stone,  and  column 
upon  column ;  you  could  see  some  invisi- 
ble hand  tracing  the  fretwork  around  the 
columns  and  carving  the  beautiful  forms; 
as  you  looked,  the  cathedral  grew  into  its 
splendid  proportions  ;  and  then  some  in- 
visible force  lifted  the  great  dome  and  put 
it  like  the  dome  of  heaven  on  the  columns 
underneath.  Would  you  think  the  per- 
sonality was  gone  because  it  was  operative 
before  your  eyes  ?  Am  I  to  think  that 
there  was  a  personal  God  six  thousand 
years  ago,  or  sixty  thousand  years  ago,  or 
six  hundred  thousand  years  ago,  and  that 
to-day,  when  I  can  go  out  and  see  him 
painting  the  leaves,  and  starting  this  fall 
the  beginnings  for  next  year's  spring  —  see 
the  love  and  life  of  the  ever  present  God 
at  work  before  my  eyes,  can  I  think  that 
his  personality  is  gone  ?  No  ;  a  thousand 
times  nearer,  a  thousand  times  closer.  We 
are  in  the  presence  of  the  great  Divine 
personality.  What  we  mean  by  person- 
ality is  this:  The  Infinite  and  Eternal 
Energy,  from  which  all  things  proceed,  is 
an  energy  that  thinks,  that  feels,  that  pur- 
[  104  ] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 


poses  and  does ;  and  is  thinking  and  feel- 
ing and  purposing  and  doing  as  a  conscious 
life,  of  which  ours  is  but  a  poor  and 
broken  reflection. 

The  image  which  in  my  childhood  I 
formed  of  God  as  a  great  king  sitting  upon 
a  great  white  throne  was  really  an  idol, 
though  it  was  not  formed  of  stone  nor 
painted  upon  a  canvas.  It  is  not  to  such 
an  imagination  we  are  to  go  for  a  realiza- 
tion of  the  personality  of  God.  God  has 
personified  himself  in  human  history. 
He  has  entered  into  one  human  life,  and 
filled  that  life  so  full  of  himself  that  in 
Jesus  Christ  we  see  the  image  of  the 
Invisible  God.  Christianity  is  not  an 
episode.  The  life  of  Christ  is  not  a  his- 
torical event  completed  in  three  short 
years.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  revelation  of 
an  Eternal  Fact,  and  the  Eternal  Fact  is 
the  Ever  Present  God.  I  stood  one  night 
on  the  top  of  Mount  Washington.  The 
clouds  were  passing  over  the  mountain  all 
the  evening,  and  the  moon  was  behind 
them,  and  I  stood  in  a  diffused  light, 
sometimes  brighter,  sometimes  less  bright ; 

[  105] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

but  every  now  and  then  the  moon  would 
seem  to  break  through  the  clouds,  and 
bend  down  and  rush  toward  the  earth  as 
though  it  would  kiss  the  very  foreheads  of 
those  of  us  who  were  looking  at  it,  and 
then  as  suddenly  it  would  retire  again,  and 
the  clouds  once  more  obscure  it.  But  it 
was  always  there.  So  the  "  Light  that 
lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world  "  was  always  in  the  world,  and  al- 
ways will  be  in  the  world  as  long  as  God 
is  love  and  man  has  need  of  him.  The 
coming  of  Christ  to  the  Church  was  in 
order  that  we  might  know  that  God  is. 
It  was  the  revelation  of  a  perpetual  incar- 
nation ;  the  revelation  of  an  unseen  but 
eternal  presence.  Too  long  we  have  stood 
at  the  foot  of  the  cross  or  at  the  door  of 
the  tomb,  and  not  seen  the  stone  rolled 
away  and  the  triumphant  Saviour  emerg- 
ing. Too  long  we  have  thought  of  the 
life  of  Christ  ending  with  his  passion  and 
death.  But  the  greatest  part  of  his  life  is 
his  post-resurrection  life. 

For  the  message  of  the  Gospel  is  not 
merely  that  Jesus  Christ  lived  and  died 
[  io6  ] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 


eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  teaching  here 
for  three  short  years  and  then  disappear- 
ing, to  be  an  absentee  Christ;  it  is  that 
God  is  always  pouring  out  his  life  upon 
men  and  into  their  hearts,  lifting  them  up 
out  of  their  sins,  succoring  them  from  their 
remorse,  and  making  them  live  again. 
Long  before  Christ  lived  the  Psalmist 
wrote :  "  Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul,  and 
all  that  is  within  me,  bless  his  holy  name  ; 
who  healeth  all  thy  diseases ;  who  forgiv- 
eth  all  thine  iniquities ;  who  redeemeth 
thy  life  from  destruction,  who  crowneth 
thee  with  loving  kindness  and  tender 
mercies."  Men  said,  "What  does  that 
mean  ? "  And  God  said,  "  I  will  tell 
you."  And  he  came,  and  for  a  little  while 
he  lived  among  men ;  he  forgave  the 
woman  that  was  a  sinner,  and  bade  her  go 
in  peace,  and  sin  no  more.  This,  he  said, 
is  what  I  mean  by  forgiving  iniquity. 
He  succored  doubting  Thomas  from  the 
scepticism  in  which  he  was  entangled,  of 
the  unstable  Peter  he  made  a  rock,  and  of 
the  ambitious  John  the  beloved  disciple 
and  the  prophet  of  a  spiritual  life.  This, 
[  107] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

he  said,  is  what  I  mean  by  the  healing  of 
diseases.  He  surrounded  the  traitor  Ju- 
das Iscariot  with  love,  and  recovered  the 
denying  Peter  and  sent  him  back,  recon- 
secrated, to  his  ministry.  This,  he  said, 
is  what  I  mean  by  saving  men  from  their 
own  destruction. 

Did  he  cease  then  ?  He  has  been  doing 
this  work  of  love  ever  since.  The  history 
of  the  world  has  been  simply  this :  man 
sinning,  God  forgiving  ;  man  diseased,  God 
healing ;  man  destroying  himself,  God  re- 
deeming him  from  his  self-destruction ; 
man  sordid  and  selling  himself  into  slavery, 
and  God  recovering  him  from  slavery  and 
crowning  him  with  lovingkindness  and 
tender  mercies.  And  the  message  of  the 
Christian  minister  to-day  to  this  sorrow- 
ing, sinful,  troubled  humanity  is,  "  The 
God  that  was  in  the  world  then  is  in  the 
world  now."  It  is  not  Browning's  mes- 
sage, "  God 's  in  his  heaven  ;  all 's  right 
with  the  world.''  If  God  were  in  his 
heaven,  all  would  not  be  right  with  the 
world.  He  is  in  his  world  making  it 
right. 

[  io8  ] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

I  suppose  there  are  some  of  you  here  to- 
night who  will  feel  that  this  frank  recog- 
nition of  the  overthrow  of  old  forms  of 
faith  is  injurious.  I  wish  you  who  hold 
still  to  the  sacredness  of  the  Roman  the- 
ology would  consider  this  question  one 
moment.  You  remember  how  Gideon, 
beating  out  the  grapes  in  the  wine-press, 
was  told  by  God  to  destroy  the  idol  of 
Baal  and  cut  down  the  groves,  and  how, 
when  the  people  came  out  the  next  morn- 
ing and  found  their  idol  and  their  sacred 
grove  gone,  they  rose  in  wrath  against  him, 
because  he  had  destroyed  their  religion. 
But  he  had  not  destroyed  their  religion; 
he  had  simply  given  it  a  wider  scope  and 
a  purer  life.  You  remember  how,  when 
Jesus  Christ  told  the  people  at  Jerusalem 
that  the  temple  would  be  destroyed,  they 
identified  religion  with  that  temple  and 
with  those  sacrifices  and  that  priesthood, 
and  counted  as  an  enemy  of  religion  any 
man  who  said  that  all  those  things  were 
to  be  destroyed.  But  he  was  not  the 
enemy  of  religion ;  and  the  destruction 
of  that  Jerusalem  and  of  that  priesthood 
[  109  ] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 

and  the  overthrow  of  those  sacrifices  were 
only  the  opening  out  of  a  larger  life.  You 
remember  how,  when  Luther  said.  Pope, 
you  are  no  vicar  of  God;  Church,  you 
are  no  infallible  representative  of  God, 
men  all  over  Europe  —  honest  men,  de- 
vout men,  godly  men,  and  godly  women  — 
wrung  their  hands  in  despair  and  said.  If 
there  is  no  Church  to  interpret  God's  law, 
how  shall  we  know  what  it  is  ?  But  to 
this  audience  I  need  not  argue  that  the 
destruction  of  the  notion  of  an  infallible 
Church  only  widened  the  scope  and  en- 
hanced the  power  of  religion.  May  it  not 
perhaps  be  that  the  same  God  who  de- 
stroyed the  idol  of  Baal  and  the  Jewish 
temple,  and  for  us  Protestants  the  power 
of  the  mediaeval  Church,  has  destroyed  this 
idol  that  we  have  reared  in  our  minds  only 
in  order  that  he  may  bring  us  nearer  to 
himself? 

God  is  in  all  nature;  thank  God  for 
the  scientists,  for  they  are  thinking  the 
thoughts  of  God  after  him,  whether  they 
know  it  or  not.  God  is  in  all  humanity, 
and  every  man  is  a  child  of  God  whom 
[  no] 


GOD    IN    HUMANITY 


we  are  to  endeavor  to  bring  back  to  his 
Father.  God  is  in  history,  forgiving  and 
redeeming,  as  Christ  was  in  Palestine,  for- 
giving and  redeeming.  God  is  in  human 
experience,  inspiring,  uplifting,  life-giving. 
Our  message  to  our  congregations  is  not 
a  mere  ethical  law,  not  a  mere  philosophy 
about  God,  not  a  mere  reiteration  of  a 
traditional  creed,  not  a  mere  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Bible.  But  through  ethics, 
and  philosophy,  and  the  creed,  and  the 
Bible,  we  are  to  bring  this  threefold  mes- 
sage :  the  message  of  science  —  "  We  are 
ever  in  the  presence  of  an  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Energy,  from  which  all  things 
proceed ; "  the  message  of  history  — 
"  There  is  a  power  not  ourselves  that 
makes  for  righteousness ; "  the  message 
of  literature  —  "Speak  to  him,  for  he 
hears ;  closer  is  he  than  breathing,  nearer 
than  hands  and  feet."  "We  are  all  his 
offspring ;  he  is  not  far  from  any  one  of 
us ;  in  him  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being.** 


[  "I] 


IV 

GOD   IN   JESUS   CHRIST 

Reprinted  from  "  The  Woman's  Home  Companion'*'* 
for  December i  igog. 


IV 
GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST^ 

THE  apostle  Paul,  going  to  Athens, 
found  himself  in  a  city  full  of  vari- 
ous idols,  so  full  that  an  ancient  satirist  said 
that  in  Athens  it  was  easier  to  find  a  god 
than  a  man.  Among  the  altars  was  one 
to  The  Unknown  God.  Paul  made  this 
inscription  the  text  of  his  sermon,  which 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  single  sen- 
tence :  "  Whom  therefore  ye  worship  with- 
out knowing  him,  him  declare  I  unto 
you."  This  is  the  message  of  Christmas 
to  the  world.  What  we  celebrate  on 
Christmas  is  a  new  unveiling  of  God. 

"  God  manifest  in  the  flesh."  What 
do  we  mean  by  that  ?  What  I  think  is 
meant  is  the  supremest  manifestation  of 
God  possible  in  human  life.  And  that 
is  the  supremest  manifestation  possible  to 
humanity.    Or,   to  restate  it  in    different 

1  Copyright,  1909, by  the  Crowell  Publishing  Co. 

[  115] 


GOD    IN    JESUS    CHRIST 

terms,  what  is  meant  is  that  what  Jesus 
Christ  is  seen  to  be  in  the  three  years  of 
his  recorded  life,  the  spirit  of  God  is  in  the 
history  of  the  human  race. 

A  mother  sits  down  on  the  floor  and 
plays  with  her  child  with  building-blocks. 
If  she  is  a  woman  of  sympathetic  imagina- 
tion she  is  herself  a  child  for  that  hour. 
She  shares  her  child's  joys  in  his  brief  suc- 
cesses and  his  disappointments  in  his  brief 
failures. 

God  lives  as  a  child  with  his  children  for 
an  hour  that  they  may  become  acquainted 
with  him  and  know  that  he  is  always  liv- 
ing with  them,  often  most  truly  when  they 
see  him  least.  There  is  much  in  the 
mother  which  remains  unknown  to  the 
child.  There  is  much  in  God  which  re- 
mains unknown  to  his  children.  But 
the  child  knows  the  mother  because  the 
mother  has  been  a  child  with  him.  And 
we  children  may  know  our  Father  because 
he  has  been  a  child  with  us. 

Three  illustrations  may  help  to  make 
the  principle  clear. 

Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  manifestation  of 
[  "6] 


GOD    IN    JESUS    CHRIST 

certain  attributes  or  qualities  of  God ;  he 
is  God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  He  is  not  a 
temporary  manifestation  of  God's  mercy 
or  pity,  leaving  his  justice  and  his  anger 
to  be  revealed  in  the  future.  There  is  no 
justice  and  no  wrath  in  God  which  is  not 
manifested  in  Jesus  Christ ;  and  there  is 
no  pity  and  no  mercy  in  Jesus  Christ 
which  is  not  a  reflection  of  the  eternal 
pity  and  mercy  of  God.  "  He  that  hath 
seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father."  To  un- 
derstand Jesus  Christ  is  to  understand  God. 
Jesus  Christ  began  his  ministry  by -at- 
tending a  wedding-feast.  His  first  miracle 
was  wrought  to  prolong  its  festivities.  He 
repeatedly  compared  the  kingdom  of  God 
to  a  great  festival.  He  accepted  all  social 
invitations ;  declined  none.  He  declared 
himself  that  he  came  eating  and  drinking, 
and  this  was  so  characteristic  of  him  that 
his  enemies  called  him  a  glutton  and 
wine-bibber.  He  compared^  himself  to 
a  musician  piping  in  the  street  for  the 
children  to  dance.  Neither  he  nor  his 
disciples  observed  the  customary  fasts 
of  the  church    to  which   they  belonged. 

[  117] 


GOD    IN    JESUS    CHRIST 

He  was  a  favorite  with  the  children,  and 
they  clustered  about  him  and  were  will- 
ing that  he  should  take  them  in  his 
arms.  His  last  meeting  with  his  dis- 
ciples was  at  a  social  meal,  and  with  such 
a  social  meal  he  asked  them  ever  to  as- 
sociate his  memory. 

If  Jesus  Christ  is  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh,  God  is  not  the  austere  being  he  is 
sometimes  represented.  There  is  much 
more  truth  in  the  philosophy  of  the  child 
who  said  "  God  must  have  laughed  when 
he  made  a  monkey  "  than  in  that  of  the 
theologian  who  said  "Jesus  wept,  but 
never  laughed."  Prayer  and  play  are  not 
incongruous.  God  is  not  the  kind  of 
father  who  wishes  his  children  to  hush 
their  laughter  when  he  enters  the  house. 
"  A  merry  heart  doeth  good  like  a  medi- 
cine," says  the  inspired  writer  —  a  motto 
which  might  well  be  put  over  the  convent 
gate  or  hung  in  the  prayer-meeting  room. 
For  to  laugh  is  as  religious  as  to  weep  ;  and 
smiles  may  bring  us  into  the  companion- 
ship of  the  Father  no  less  than  tears.  Let 
us  get  rid  of  this  notion  that  we  must 
[  ii8] 


GOD    IN   JESUS    CHRIST 

always  associate  the  thoughts  of  God  with 
a  spirit  of  great  solemnity.  Gayety  and 
God  are  not  mutually  exclusive. 

But  Jesus  Christ  was  not  all  gayety. 
"Woe  unto  you  laughing  ones,"  he  said; 
"  for  ye  shall  mourn  and  weep.**  He  had 
no  sympathy  for  the  jester  who  can  take 
nothing  seriously,  but  tries  to  make  of  life 
one  huge  protracted  joke.  He  saw  that 
the  whole  world  groaneth  and  travaileth 
in  pain,  and  he  travailed  with  it.  So  did 
he  enter  into  the  sorrows  of  the  sorrowing, 
so  did  he  make  them  his  own,  that  it  was 
prophetically  said  that  he  "  was  acquainted 
with  grief."  The  sorrows  might  be  super- 
ficial and  transient,  they  might  be  deep  and 
abiding.  He  was  not  indifferent  to  either. 
When  he  had  been  preaching  all  day,  and 
evening  came,  and  his  loyal  disciples  de- 
siring for  their  Master  some  rest,  asked 
him  to  send  the  congregation  away,  he 
would  not  do  it  until  he  had  provided 
for  their  hunger.  When  the  brother  had 
died  and  the  sisters  were  heartbroken,  he 
shared  their  grief  with  them  and  mingled 
his  tears  with  theirs. 

[  "9] 


GOD    IN    JESUS    CHRIST 

To  some  it  seems  a  profanation  to  think 
of  God  as  suffering.  To  me  it  is  a  profa- 
nation to  think  of  him  as  incapable  of 
suffering.  Love  suffers  when  the  loved 
one  suffers.  If  God  is  love,  God  knows 
the  sorrows  as  well  as  the  joys  of  love. 
If  Jesus  Christ  is  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh,  the  tears  shed  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus 
and  at  the  prospective  destruction  of  Jerusa- 
lem are  divine  tears.  To  me  the  greatness 
of  the  infinite  power  and  skill  manifested 
at  the  same  moment  in  the  most  distant 
star  and  in  our  globe  by  the  forth-putting 
of  the  same  wisdom  and  power  is  not  so 
marvellous  as  the  greatness  of  soul  mani- 
fested in  a  sympathy  which  can  share  at 
one  and  the  same  time  the  joys  of  the 
wedding  and  the  sorrows  of  the  funeral. 
But  why  should  I  believe  his  power  and 
his  skill  are  infinite  and  refuse  to  believe 
that  his  sympathies  are  infinite  ?  His  chil- 
dren crowd  about  him,  some  with  their 
gratitude,  some  with  their  reproaches, 
some  exultant  with  victory,  some  humili- 
ated by  their  defeats,  some  joyous,  some  in 
tears,  some  saints  with  songs  and  some 
[  120  ] 


GOD    IN    JESUS    CHRIST 

Sinners  with  hopeless  penitence,  and  he 
is  not  distraught.  He  hears  all  voices, 
shares  all  experiences,  ministers  to  all 
needs. 

To  Jesus  Christ  sin  was  a  disease  to 
be  cured  rather  than  a  crime  to  be  pun- 
ished. It  awakened  his  pity,  not  his 
anger.  Condemned  for  associating  with 
sinners,  he  replied  on  one  occasion, 
"They  that  be  whole  need  not  a  phy- 
sician, but  they  that  are  sick."  On  an- 
other occasion  he  said  that  he  had  come 
to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  is  lost. 
And  to  him  a  lost  soul  was  a  soul  not 
yet  found.  He  compared  such  a  soul 
to  a  coin  mislaid,  which  the  owner  was 
seeking;  to  a  sheep  strayed  from  the 
fold,  which  the  shepherd  was  seeking ;  to 
a  prodigal  son,  whose  return  the  father 
was  awaiting.  There  is  no  one  for  whom 
society  has  so  little  hope  as  a  lost  woman ; 
but  Jesus  never  despaired  of  the  recovery 
of  even  a  lost  woman.  Even  the  Judas 
who  betrayed  him  he  sought  to  rescue 
with  reproachful  greeting :  Friend,  betray- 
est  thou  the  Son  of  man  with  a  kiss  ?   There 

[    121    ] 


GOD    IN   JESUS    CHRIST 

was  only  one  character  whose  destiny  he 
seemed  himself  unable  to  avert ;  the  re- 
ligious man  whose  religion  was  a  false  pre- 
tence, who  was  pious,  but  not  humane; 
who  devoured  widows'  homes  and  for  a 
pretence  made  long  prayers.  The  offal 
of  Jerusalem  was  carried  out  of  the  city 
into  the  valley  of  Gehenna  and  there 
thrown  upon  fires  always  left  burning, 
and  there  it  was  consumed.  "  Alas  !  for 
you  hypocrite,"  cried  Jesus,  in  an  outburst 
of  despairing  pity,  "  how  can  you  escape 
Gehenna  ?  "  To  him  such  false  pre- 
tences seemed  like  the  offal  of  the  uni- 
verse, doomed  to  destruction. 

Jesus  Christ,  saviour  of  men,  is  the 
revelation  of  God's  perpetual  presence 
and  perpetual  power  in  the  world.  Holi- 
ness is  health.  Sin  is  disease.  Forgiveness 
is  healing.  God  is  the  Great  Physician. 
We  come  before  him,  not  as  criminals 
to  be  judged  and  punished,  but  as  sick  to 
be  cured.  Those  who  do  not  know  that 
they  are  sick  and  need  cure  are  the  sickest 
of  all.  He  is  the  "  Power  not  ourselves 
that  makes  for  righteousness."  His  life 
[   122  ] 


GOD    IN   JESUS    CHRIST 

in  the  world  is  a  continuation  of  the  life  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  is  the  life  which  cen- 
turies before  Christ  David  saw;  which 
centuries  after  Christ  so  many  of  Christ's 
disciples  fail  to  see  : 

<*  Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul. 
And  all  that  is  within  me,  bless  his  holy  name. 
Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul. 
And  forget  not  all  his  benefits : 
Who  forgiveth  all  thine  iniquities  ; 
Who  healeth  all  thy  diseases  ; 
Who  redeemeth  thy  life  from  destruction  ; 
Who  crowneth  thee  with  loving-kindness  and  tender 

mercies ; 
Who  satisfieth  thine  age  with  good  ; 
So  that  thy  youth  is  renewed  like  the  eagle's.** 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  discus- 
sion and  far  too  much  hot  debate  con- 
cerning the  relation  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
Infinite  and  Eternal.  We  do  not  know 
—  at  least  I  do  not  know  —  enough  to 
define  that  relation,  but  we  do  know 
enough  to  define  his  relation  to  us. 
That  definition  may  be  very  briefly  given 
in  the  following  words :  The  supremest 
work  of  God  is  man,  whom  he  has  made 
[  123  ] 


GOD    IN   JESUS    CHRIST 

in  his  own  image.  The  supremest  reve- 
lation of  God  is  therefore  that  afforded 
by  the  life  and  character  of  man.  The 
supremest  ideal  of  humanity  is  Jesus 
Christ.  Therefore  the  supremest  revel- 
ation of  God  to  man  is  that  to  be  found 
in  the  life  and  character  of  Jesus  Christ. 
This  is  in  my  judgment  the  essence  of 
the  theological  teaching  of  Paul  on  this 
subject. 

We  celebrate  on  Christmas,  not  the 
birth  of  Santa  Claus,  the  patron  saint  of 
the  children  ;  not  merely  the  birth  of  the 
Christ-child,  symbol  of  all  innocent  child- 
hood ;  nor  yet  alone  the  birth  of  the 
martyr-hero,  leader  and  type  of  all  who 
have  lived  and  loved  and  suffered  for 
their  race.  We  celebrate  a  new  unveiling 
of  God  to  humanity,  the  dwelling  of  God 
in  humanity.  We  celebrate  the  day  when 
the  love  of  God  dawned  on  the  world  and 
the  fear  of  the  gods  began  slowly  and  sul- 
lenly to  give  way  before  the  coming  of  the 
new  day.  Every  year  Christmas  repeats 
its  message :  Fear  God  no  more.  He 
brings  liberty  to    the  enslaved,  light   to 

[  124] 


GOD    IN   JESUS    CHRIST 

the  despairing,  purer  joy  to  the  glad. 
He  is  the  Comforter  of  the  sorrowing, 
the  Physician  of  the  sick,  the  Healer  of 
the  sinful,  the  Friend  and  Companion  of 
man. 


[  125] 


V 

GOD   A  SAVIOUR   FROM   SIN 


V 

GOD  A  SAVIOUR  FROM   SIN^ 

WHEN  I  was  a  child  —  whether  it 
was  my  fault  or  the  fault  of  my 
teachers  or  of  the  Church  I  do  not  know 
—  I  thought  I  ought  to  feel  that  I  was  a 
lost  and  ruined  sinner,  and  was  worthy  of 
eternal  punishment  for  my  sins.  Yet,  as  a 
little  boy,  I  could  not  realize  that  I  had 
committed  sins  that  were  worthy  of  eternal 
punishment ;  and  I  remember  that  I  used 
sometimes  to  shut  myself  up  in  my  room 
in  the  gloaming  of  the  twilight,  while  the 
frogs  were  croaking  in  the  not  distant 
meadow  and  everything  would  tend  to 
gloom,  and  try  to  make  myself  as  miser- 
able as  I  could,  because  I  felt  it  necessary 
that  I  should  have  a  conviction  of  sin. 
But  I  was  also  taught  to  think  that  if  I 
believed  certain  things  or  if  I  received 
certain  experiences,  then  I  should  be  ex- 

1  Copyright,  1900,  by  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Co. 
[   129  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

empted  from  the  punishment  which  had 
been  pronounced  against  me.  And  this 
was  my  conception  of  salvation.  If  I  be- 
lieved that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  Son  of 
God  and  had  come  to  earth  and  had  suf- 
fered in  my  stead,  and  really  believed  it, 
then  the  punishment  which  was  pronounced 
against  me  would  be  transferred  to  him  and 
I  should  be  set  free.  I  suspect  something 
like  that  is  not  uncommon  as  a  conception 
of  salvation  to  this  day.  But  the  Gospel 
declares  something  very  different.  "  Thou 
shalt  call  his  name  Jesus  :  for  he  shall  save 
his  people  from  their  sins."  Sin  is  not  the 
same  as  punishment  for  sin.  The  New 
Testament  says  very  little  about  saving 
men  from  punishment;  it  says  a  great 
deal  about  saving  men  from  sin. 

Turn  over  the  pages  of  this  same  Gos- 
pel of  Matthew  to  the  closing  chapters. 
Jesus  Christ  has  brought  the  disciples 
about  him  at  the  Paschal  Supper.  The 
one  traitor  has  gone  out  into  the  dark- 
ness;  the  eleven  remain.  Christ  breaks 
the  bread  and  passes  it  to  them ;  he  fills 
the  cup  and  passes  it  to  them  ;  and  he 
[  130  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

says :  "  This  cup  is  the  new  covenant  in 
my  blood,  which  is  shed  for  many  for 
the  remission  of  sins."  Remission  means 
"sending  away,"  therefore:  "This  cup  is 
the  new  covenant  in  my  blood  for  the 
sending  away  of  your  sins."  Turn  to 
Paul  and  see  what  is  his  conception  of 
salvation.  "  God,  who  is  rich  in  mercy, 
for  the  great  love  wherewith  he  loved  us, 
even  when  we  were  dead  in  sin,  hath  made 
us  alive  together  with  Christ  (by  grace  ye 
are  saved),  and  hath  raised  us  up  together 
and  made  us  sit  together  in  heavenly  places 
in  Christ  Jesus."  Observe  it  is  in  the 
past  tense,  not  in  the  future ;  not  he  will 
make  us  alive,  will  raise  us  up,  will  make 
us  sit  together  in  heavenly  places  —  he 
hath  made  us  alive,  hath  raised  us  up,  hath 
made  us  sit  in  heavenly  places.  Or  turn 
to  John  ^'  The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  his 
Son,  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin.  If  we  say 
that  we  have  no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves 
and  the  truth  is  not  in  us.  If  we  confess 
our  sins,  he  is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive 
us  our  sins  and  to  cleanse  us  from  all 
unrighteousness." 

[  131  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

Do  you  not  see  the  difference  between 
these  two  conceptions  ?  The  one  thought 
is:  I  am  in  danger  of  punishment  —  I 
shall  be  saved  from  future  penalty ;  the 
other :  I  am  struggling  with  sin  —  I  can 
be  delivered  from  that.  The  one  is  — 
Jesus  Christ  has  borne  my  punishment ; 
the  other  is  —  Jesus  Christ  is  bearing 
away  my  sin.  He  is  "  the  Lamb  of  God 
that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world." 
The  one  is  —  the  pain  and  sacrifice  and 
suffering  of  Christ  is  necessary  because 
the  wrath  or  the  justice  or  the  law  of  God 
requires  that  somebody  should  be  pun- 
ished ;  the  other  is  —  the  sacrifice,  the 
blood,  the  suffering,  the  passion  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  necessary  that  we  should  be 
cleansed  from  sin.  Jesus  Christ  has  come 
into  the  world  to  redeem  us  from  sin  :  this 
is  the  vital  matter,  not  the  other. 

Exemption  from  penalty  without  de- 
liverance from  sin  would  not  be  salvation. 
If  a  good  man  were  to  go  to  hell  and  stay 
there,  he  would  be  saved ;  if  a  bad  man 
were  to  go  to  heaven  and  stay  there,  he 
would  be  lost.  Peter  says  that  Jesus 
[  132  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

Christ  preached  to  the  spirits  in  prison. 
Scholars  differ  somewhat  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  passage ;  but  if  it  be  true 
that  Jesus  Christ  did  go  to  hell  and  in 
hell  preached,  he  was  not  a  lost  soul 
while  he  preached  there.  To  be  lost  is  to 
be  in  sin,  not  to  be  in  hell  ;  to  be  saved 
is  to  be  in  virtue,  not  to  be  in  heaven. 
Heaven  must  be  in  us — and  hell  is  in 
some. 

This  is  the  first  truth  I  want  to  put 
before  you.  Salvation  is  character.  Not 
on  our  condition  but  on  our  character 
does  life  depend.  And  although  it  is  true 
that  under  God*s  government  penalty  fol- 
lows sin ;  although  it  is  true  that  under 
God's  government  happiness,  the  highest 
type  and  form  of  happiness,  follows  vir- 
tue; the  virtue  is  not  for  the  happiness, 
but  for  its  own  sake.  It  were  better  to 
be  a  righteous  man  and  suffer  eternally 
than  to  be  an  ignoble  man  and  be  clothed 
in  fine  linen  and  fare  sumptuously  eter- 
nally. Salvation  is  character;  it  is  de- 
liverance from  sin ;  it  is  lifting  the  man 
out  of  the  lower  life  and  bringing  him  into 
[  133  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

the  higher  life  ;  it  is  making  a  man  of  one 
who  is  only  in  semblance  a  man  or  only- 
half  a  man. 

If  this  be  true,  then  what  is  essential  to 
the  salvation  is  a  change  in  character,  not 
in  external  circumstance.  If  salvation  is 
a  change  in  condition,  then  external  causes 
may  change  the  condition  and  thus  save ; 
but  if  salvation  is  character,  then  the 
change  must  be  in  the  character.  A  mob 
may  tear  down  the  Bastile  and  set  free  the 
prisoners  therein,  but  a  mob  cannot  make 
guilty  men  innocent.  Guilty  men  can  no 
more  be  made  innocent  by  being  set  free 
from  prison  than  innocent  men  can  be 
made  guilty  by  being  hanged  without  a 
trial.  If  salvation  is  character,  then  the 
condition  of  salvation  is  in  the  character  it- 
self; something  wrought  within  ;  wrought 
perhaps  by  an  influence  from  without,  but 
wrought  within.  A  man  who  is  attempt- 
ing to  commit  suicide  by  drowning  him- 
self in  the  surf  may  be  rescued ;  but  no 
man  can  be  rescued  from  the  life  of  infamy, 
dishonor,  pride,  appetite,  greed,  selfishness, 
in  spite  of  himself.     Character  cannot  be 

[  134] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

imputed.  A  guilty  man  may  be  treated 
as  though  he  were  innocent,  but  he  cannot 
be  made  innocent  unless  he  is  transformed 
from  within. 

This  is  what  Jesus  Christ  came  to  do. 
Not  to  show  how  we  can  escape  hell  and 
get  into  heaven,  but  to  show  how  we  can 
escape  from  ourselves  and  become  other 
selves ;  to  show  how  we  may  cease  to  be 
what  we  are  and  become  what  we  desire 
to  be.  He  came  that  he  might  teach  us 
and  empower  us  to  be  the  men  we  want 
to  be,  the  men  we  ought  to  be. 

At  least  three  things  are  necessary  for 
this  salvation  in  character,  this  transfor- 
mation which  alone  is  salvation  :  First,  that 
the  man  should  appreciate  goodness ;  sec- 
ond, that  he  should  have  a  purpose  to  at- 
tain it;  and  third,  that  he  should  have  help 
from  one  stronger  than  himself  in  attaining 
it.  And  at  least  these  three  things  Christ 
has  come  to  give  ;  he  has  come  to  show  us 
what  manhood  is,  he  has  come  to  put 
into  us  the  hope  of  attaining  it,  and  he 
has  come  to  give  us  help  in  accomplishing 
that  hope. 

[  135  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

Eighteen  centuries  ago  a  babe  was  born 
in  Bethlehem  and  grew  up  to  manhood  — 
we  know  not  how.  He  saw  the  corrup- 
tion about  him ;  the  vice  that  had  entered 
into  society;  the  despotism  in  govern- 
ment; the  disunion  and  disruption  of  the 
homes ;  the  ignorance  and  superstition, 
the  greed  and  selfishness  and  cruelty  in 
men's  hearts ;  and  he  set  himself  to  de- 
liver men  from  themselves.  He  had 
wonderful  power ;  he  never  used  it  for 
himself.  He  might  have  been  rich  ;  he 
says  of  himself:  "The  birds  of  the  air 
have  nests,  and  the  foxes  have  holes ;  the 
Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his 
head."  He  might  have  selected  his  com- 
panions where  he  would ;  he  took  them 
from  the  humble,  the  lowly,  and  the  ig- 
norant ;  not  only  that,  but  often  from  the 
dull-headed,  the  low-spirited,  and  the  poor 
in  mind  as  well  as  in  estate.  He  never 
saw  sorrow  that  he  did  not  try  to  comfort 
it ;  or  a  need  that  he  did  not  try  to  help 
it.  There  was  no  physical  condition  so 
disgusting  that  it  barred  men  from  his 
sympathy.     There  was  no  sin  that  could 

[  136] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

separate  men  from  his  helpfulness.  The 
woman  who  was  a  sinner,  whom  other 
men  would  not  touch  nor  look  at  except 
in  scorn  (whom  they  will  not  touch  nor 
look  at  even  to-day  except  in  scorn),  he 
looked  at  with  pity,  and  said :  "  Go  in 
peace  and  sin  no  more."  Men  did  not 
understand  it.  He  loved  them,  but  they 
did  not  love  him.  They  applauded  him 
at  times  ;  at  other  times  they  scoffed  at 
him.  Three  short  years  passed,  and  then 
the  men  whom  he  loved,  the  men  whom 
he  sought  to  save,  hung  him  up  on  a  cross 
and  put  him  to  death. 

All  that  love  means  is  interpreted  in 
that  unselfish  life.  And  the  first  thing 
that  Christ  says  to  us  is  this:  Is  that  the 
kind  of  life  you  want  to  live  ?  Is  that  the 
kind  of  person  you  want  to  be  ?  Do  you 
want  to  live  in  this  world  to  see  what  you 
can  get  out  of  it,  or  do  you  want  to  live 
in  this  world  to  see  what  you  can  put  into 
it  ?  Is  your  object  self-service  or  the  ser- 
vice of  others  ?  Do  you  want  to  make 
yourself  rich  or  your  neighbor  rich  ?  Do 
you  want  to  make  yourself  famous,  or  are 

[  137] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

you  willing  to  use  all  your  powers  only  to 
make  others  better  and  happier?  What 
do  you  want?  He  has  told  us  in  one  of 
his  sermons  what  are  the  conditions  of 
happiness.  Blessed,  he  says,  are  the  poor 
in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Is  that  what  we  want?  When 
we  read  the  story  of  this  Christ,  spit 
upon,  beaten,  reviled,  and  answering  not, 
we  think  we  must  admire  it  because  it  is 
the  story  of  the  Christ,  and  in  church  we 
do ;  but  when,  in  public  life,  a  man  is 
abused  and  vilified,  what  is  it  that  we  like 
best  —  to  see  him  suffer  in  silence  and 
make  no  answer,  or  to  see  him  write  a 
keen  letter  to  the  newspaper  and  put  his 
enemy  to  flight  ?  "  Blessed  are  the  meek, 
for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth,"  —  on 
Sunday  morning  we  believe  in  that,  of 
course,  because  it  is  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment ;  but  how  about  to-morrow  ?  how 
about  next  week  ?  how  about  struggling, 
grasping,  energetic  enterprising  America? 
Who  is  it  that  we  really  believe  gets  the 
benefit  of  the  earth  ?  If  we  wrote  our 
highest  convictions,  should  we  not  write : 

[  138] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

"Blessed  are  the  enterprising  and  not 
over  scrupulous,  for  they  shall  get  the 
earth  "  ?  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart, 
for  they  shall  see  God."  Open  the  novel, 
go  to  the  theatre,  listen  to  the  latest 
drama,  and  tell  yourself  whether,  if  what 
men  to-day  want  in  the  realm  of  imagina- 
tion be  measured  by  what  they  buy  and 
pay  for,  they  really  are  eager  for  that 
which  ministers  only  to  purity  of  heart. 

Faith  in  Christ  is,  first  of  all,  this : 
Such  as  he  was  I  want  to  be ;  his  is  the 
kind  of  life  I  want  to  live ;  his  is  the 
kind  of  character  I  want  to  possess ;  his 
is  the  kind  of  blessedness  I  desire  for  my- 
self and  for  my  children.  A  man  may 
believe  what  creed  he  will,  and  if  this  is 
not  in  his  heart,  he  has  not  faith  in  Christ. 
He  may  be  baptized  with  holy  water 
taken  from  the  Jordan,  blessed  by  the 
priest,  bishop,  archbishop,  and  Pope  ;  and 
if  this  desire  is  not  in  his  heart,  he  has  no 
faith  in  Christ.  He  may  have  joined  in 
succession  all  the  churches  in  Christen- 
dom, from  the  Quaker  meeting  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  hierarchy,  and  if  in  his 
[  139  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

heart  there  is  not  the  faith  that  desires  the 
lowliness  of  spirit  which  suffers  long  and 
is  kind,  the  meekness  which  inherits  the 
earth  as  a  gift,  the  purity  of  heart  which 
sees  God,  he  has  no  faith  in  Christ. 
Faith  in  Christ  cannot  find  its  interpreta- 
tion in  any  creed,  however  orthodox ;  it 
finds  its  interpretation  in  some  hearts  that 
do  not  understand  nor  accept  any  recog- 
nized orthodox  creed. 

But  necessary  to  this  salvation,  this 
character,  is  not  only  a  perception  of  the 
ideal,  but  an  eager  purpose  to  attain  it. 
We  do  not  make  anything  by  dreaming : 
neither  a  building,  nor  an  empire,  nor  an 
individual  character.  We  cannot  sit  and 
sing  ourselves  away  to  everlasting  bliss ; 
we  have  to  go  out  and  fight  our  way  to 
everlasting  bliss.  All  life  is  a  struggle. 
The  seventh  chapter  of  Romans  comes 
before  the  eighth.  A  man  must  know 
the  experience  which  cries  out,  "  I  do  the 
things  I  would  not  do  and  I  hate  the 
things  that  I  do,''  before  he  can  cry  out, 
"  Thanks  be  to  God  which  giveth  us  the 
victory  !  "  No  man  can  be  free  who  does 
[  140  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

not  desire  freedom  ;  neither  can  any  man 
be  free  who  is  not  willing  to  suffer  for 
freedom.  The  price  of  character  is  battle, 
as  the  price  of  every  victory  is  battle. 
There  must  be  not  only  the  vision  of  this 
beautiful  character,  that  comes  on  Sunday 
like  a  dissolving  view,  and  on  Sunday 
night,  like  a  dissolving  view,  disappears 
again ;  there  must  be  also  this  faith  : 
That  character  is  for  me,  I  can  be  that 
kind  of  a  person,  and,  God  helping  me,  I 
will.  The  mere  vision  of  a  Christ,  with- 
out the  vigorous  attempt  to  reproduce  the 
Christ,  is  sentimentality  in  religion,  and 
we  are  never  saved  by  sentimentality. 
We  are  not  religious  because  we  go  to 
church  and  heartily  applaud  an  eloquent 
sermon,  any  more  than  we  are  religious 
because  we  heartily  applaud  beautiful 
music.  ^stheticism  is  not  spirituality. 
Life  does  not  consist  in  seeing  beautiful 
pictures,  but  in  struggling  toward  a  splen- 
did result,  and  Jesus  Christ  has  come  not 
only  to  put  before  men  this  vision,  but  to 
put  into  the  hearts  of  men  this  strong  and 
strenuous  endeavor. 

[  141  ] 


God  a  saviour  from  sin 

But  with  this  endeavor  must  be  mingled 
hope,  anticipation,  expectation,  otherwise 
the  greater  the  endeavor  the  greater  the 
despair.  And  Christ  not  only  puts  before 
us  ideals  of  character  to  be  pursued,  not 
only  incites  within  us  an  ambitious  purpose 
to  live  his  life  and  possess  his  character, 
but  by  his  inspiring  presence,  by  his  over- 
mastering personality  confers  on  us  the 
power  to  live  that  life  and  possess  that 
character.  If  we  ask  ourselves  what  Christ 
meant  by  salvation,  we  have  but  to  read 
the  Gospel  and  see  how  he  saved  men 
when  he  was  on  the  earth.  He  came  to  a 
tax-collector  sitting  at  the  receipt  of  cus- 
toms, —  all  tax-collectors  in  that  day  were 
corrupt,  —  and  he  said  to  him,  "Follow 
me  ! "  and  Matthew  left  his  tax-collecting 
to  follow  the  new  life.  He  came  to  some 
fishermen,  prosaic  and  common  men,  do- 
ing service  in  common  ways,  and  he  said 
to  them,  "  Follow  me,  and  I  will  make 
you  fishers  of  men ;  I  will  give  you  a 
higher  mission  and  a  nobler  opportunity," 
and  they  left  their  commonplace  vocations 
to  follow  him.  He  came  into  Jericho, 
[  142  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

and  a  corrupt  politician  of  his  time  climbed 
a  tree  to  look  at  him  —  a  man  at  whom 
all  men  pointed  the  finger  of  scorn,  the 
man  whom  all  men  hated  —  the  Jewish 
"  boss,"  who  derived  his  power  as  a  polit- 
ical leader,  not  from  his  own  people,  but 
from  a  despotic  foreigner.  To  him  Christ 
says,  I  will  stay  at  your  house  to-night ; 
and  when  he  came,  there  was  something  in 
Christ  that  put  such  higher  purpose  into 
that  man  that  the  man  said,  "  I  have  been 
dishonest,  but  I  will  restore  fourfold  to 
those  from  whom  I  stole,  and  as  I  cannot 
find  them  all  I  will  give  half  of  what  is 
left  to  feed  the  poor."  And  Christ  said, 
"  Salvation  is  come  unto  this  house." 
Salvation — why  ?  Because  change  of  char- 
acter, new  life,  more  than  new  vision  — 
new  purpose,  more  than  new  purpose  —  a 
purpose  that  costs  something.  When  a 
man  says,  I  will  hunt  out  every  man  I 
have  treated  dishonestly  and  give  him 
back  with  compound  interest  what  I  have 
taken,  and  then  I  will  cut  what  is  left  of 
my  fortune  in  two  and  give  it  half  away 
—  he  has  given  better  evidence  of  religion 

[  nz  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

than  Is  generally  given  to  examining  com- 
mittees in  church. 

This  was  the  kind  of  salvation  which, 
as  we  read  the  story  of  his  life,  we  see  that 
Jesus  Christ  commonly  brought  to  men. 
But  this  was  not  all.  After  he  had  put 
this  new  motive,  this  new  hope  into  men's 
hearts,  he  put  into  them  the  power  to  ac- 
complish the  purpose.  One  of  his  disci- 
ples was  impetuous,  impulsive,  with  no 
strength  of  will,  no  stability  of  character ; 
one  who  cried,  "  Bid  me  to  walk  on  the 
waves,"  but  began  to  sink  almost  as  soon 
as  his  feet  touched  the  waves  and  changed 
his  cry  to  "  Save,  Lord,  save  or  I  perish  ;  " 
one  who  said  to  Christ,  "  Though  all  men 
forsake  thee,  yet  will  I  not  deny  thee," 
and  yet  before  three  hours  had  passed  had 
denied  his  Lord  thrice  with  oaths.  It  was 
to  him  Christ  said,  "  Thou  art  a  rock,  and 
on  this  rock  will  I  build  my  church." 
Faith  in  Christ  made  of  him  a  rock,  and 
on  men  transformed  as  he  was  Christ  has 
built  his  church.  John  we  think  of  as  the 
unworldly,  unselfish,  tender,  loving  disci- 
ple ;  but  you  remember  that  when  James 
I  H4  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

and  John  first  came  to  Jesus  he  called  them 
"  Boanerges,  Sons  of  Thunder."  It  was 
John  who  said,  when  a  Samaritan  village 
refused  to  admit  them,  "  Shall  I  call  down 
fire  from  heaven  to  destroy  this  village  ?  " 
It  was  James  and  John  at  the  time  of  the 
triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem  who  with 
their  mother  came  to  ask  that  they  might 
have  the  best  places  in  the  kingdom. 
And  yet  when  John  had  been  transformed 
by  Christ  he  was  preeminently  the  apostle 
of  love,  so  that  we  are  told  that  in  his  old 
age,  when  he  could  no  longer  preach,  his 
disciples  brought  him  in  a  chair  to  the 
churches  and  he  repeated  to  the  congre- 
gation simply,  "  Little  children,  love  one 
another."  Whether  this  be  fact  or  not, 
it  is  true  to  his  new  character. 

This  is  the  kind  of  saving  Christ  did. 
He  did  not  say  to  men,  "  You  are  going 
to  hell,  for  you  are  wicked ;  but  I  will 
save  you  from  hell  if  you  will  believe  cer- 
tain theories."  He  never  stated  theories. 
He  said,  "You  are  living  a  poor  life ;  fol- 
low me  and  I  will  show  you  how  to  live  a 
better  life  and  enable  you  to  live  a  better 
[  145  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

life.  Follow  me  and  I  will  take  the  con- 
sciousness, the  pride,  the  ambition,  the  insta- 
bility, out  of  you,  and  will  make  you  hum- 
ble and  unselfish  and  strong."  This  is  what 
he  did  for  men  in  his  earthly  ministry,  and 
this  is  what  he  has  been  doing  for  men  ever 
since  his  resurrection.  He  put  a  new  am- 
bition, a  new  heart,  a  new  purpose,  a  new 
hope,  into  men.  Men  said,  "We  can- 
not ;  "  he  said,  "  You  can."  The  very 
command  of  Christ  ought  to  be  inspiration. 
A  father  goes  out  in  the  hill  country  to 
walk  with  his  boys,  and  while  they  stop  to 
pluck  flowers  and  play,  the  father  goes 
steadily  up  the  hill,  and  by  and  by  he  ap- 
pears far  above  on  an  out-jutting  crag, 
and  calls  "  Follow  me  !  "  The  children 
look  up.  How  shall  they  follow  him  ? 
how  climb  that  great,  steep  precipice  ? 
But  still  the  father  calls,  "  Follow  me  ! " 
And  one  says  to  himself  and  to  his  com- 
panions, "  Father  would  not  tell  us  to  fol- 
low him  if  we  could  not  follow.  I  do  not 
know  the  way  and  I  do  not  see  how  we 
can  take  it,  but  I  will  start,  because  if 
father  says  ^  Follow  me,'  I  know  I  can 
[  146] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

follow  him  and  where  he  stands  I  can  yet 
stand."  So  when  Christ,  our  Heavenly 
Master,  looks  out  of  heaven  and  says  to 
us,  "Follow  me,"  I  know,  because  he  com- 
mands it,  that  I  can ;  when  he  says,  "  Be 
like  me,"  I  know,  because  he  says  it,  that 
I  can.  Christ  like  ordinary  men  ?  No  ; 
but  ordinary  men  can  become  like  Christ. 
This  bit  of  clay  on  the  potter's  table  like 
this  beautiful  vase  ?  No  ;  but  this  bit  of 
clay  on  the  potter's  table,  if  it  submits  it- 
self long  enough  to  the  hands  that  are 
framing  it  and  to  the  skill  that  is  working 
on  it,  will  become  like  that  vase  upon  the 
shelf.  There  are  some  of  you  here  this 
morning  who  say,  I  can  never  become  like 
Christ.  You  can.  I  am  prosaic  and  com- 
monplace ;  these  visions  are  not  for  me. 
Are  you  more  prosaic  than  Matthew?  I  am 
ambitious  and  cannot  keep  my  ambition 
under  control.  Are  you  more  ambitious 
than  James  and  John,  who  came  to  Christ 
in  the  very  hour  before  his  Passion,  seek- 
ing the  best  places  in  the  coming  kingdom  ? 
I  am  proud.  Is  your  pride  greater  than 
that  of  Paul,  the  Pharisee  ?  I  am  in  de- 
[  147  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

spair;  all  men  despise  me;  I  have  sinned 
away  my  opportunity;  for  me  there  is  no 
chance.  Is  your  despair  greater  than  that 
of  the  woman  to  whom  Christ  said, 
"Neither  do  I  condemn  thee;  go  in 
peace"?  I  am  superstitious,  brought  up 
under  a  bad  creed.  I  have  thrown  it  away 
and  have  nothing  else ;  for  me  there  is  no 
chance ;  if  only  I  had  had  Christian  par- 
ents, your  education,  the  liberty  of  the 
Gospel  when  I  was  a  boy  !  Were  you 
brought  up  in  a  more  superstitious  atmos- 
phere, under  a  worse  creed,  under  more 
disadvantageous  circumstances  than  Lu- 
ther, the  emancipator  of  Europe  ?  I  have 
an  appetite  which  masters  me;  I  eat  the 
things  I  know  I  ought  not  to  eat,  and 
I  drink  the  things  I  know  I  ought  not  to 
drink.  There  is  no  chance  for  me.  Are 
you  worse  off  than  John  B.  Gough,  the 
victim  of  delirium  tremens,  rescued  by  the 
power  and  the  hopefulness  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 
In  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  Bible  the  word 
rendered  in  our  English  Bible  "  Saviour  " 
is  said  to  be  rendered  "  Helper."  I  have 
sometimes  almost  wished  that  we  had  had 
[148] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

in  place  of  the  Latin  word  "  Saviour " 
that  plainer,  simpler  Anglo-Saxon  word 
"  Helper."  Christ's  saving  is  helping  and 
Christ's  helping  is  saving.  Independence 
is  a  much  praised  word  in  America,  but 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  independence. 
No  nation  is  independent  of  any  other  na- 
tion ;  no  community  of  other  communi- 
ties ;  no  individual  of  other  individuals. 
We  are  knit  together  and  depend  on  one 
another,  not  merely  for  the  material  com- 
forts for  the  outer  life,  but  for  the  inner 
life  as  well.  The  child  is  born  into  the 
family  and  is  dependent  upon  the  father 
and  mother  for  the  beginnings  of  life. 
He  goes  into  school  and  becomes  depend- 
ent upon  his  teachers,  and  yet  more  on  his 
companions,  for  such  life  as  they  can  im-- 
part  to  him.  He  learns  from  their  exam- 
ples, he  imbibes  their  spirit.  He  goes 
into  business,  and  not  only  from  the  part- 
ners who  are  working  with  him  in  the 
store,  but  from  the  rivals  who  are  compet- 
ing with  him  outside,  he  learns.  He  mar- 
ries, and  his  wife  imparts  life  to  him  and 
he  imparts  life  to  his  wife,  each  dependent 
[  H9  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

upon  the  other.  Children  come  and  they 
in  turn  become  his  teachers  and  his  Hfe- 
givers.  The  mothers  here  know  that ! 
Nothing  that  they  have  yet  given  to  their 
children  can  compare  with  what  their  chil- 
dren have  given  to  them.  Our  children 
are  our  great  teachers,  our  great  ministers, 
for  something  of  God*s  own  life  looks  out 
of  their  strange  and  mystic  eyes.  So  we 
go  on  giving  our  life  to  one  another,  help- 
ing or  hindering  one  another  in  our  high- 
est development.  And  above  all  and 
inspiring  us  all  is  the  great  Help-Giver 
—  Christ. 

We  make  a  great  mistake  and  we  do 
not  understand  the  foundation  of  our 
Christian  faith,  if  we  regard  Christ's  life  as 
spent  in  Palestine  and  lasting  only  three 
short  years.  The  very  basis  of  our  Chris- 
tian discipleship  is  this  :  That  he  rose  from 
the  dead,  is  living,  and  that  here  to-day  he 
is  doing  for  us  what  he  did  for  those  of 
the  olden  time.  He  is  still  here,  still 
pouring  into  his  followers  the  treasures  of 
his  illimitable  life.  The  question  is  not. 
What  can  you  do  ?  but.  What  can  you  and 

[150] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

God  together  do  ?  Not,  What  can  you  do 
apart  from  him  to  win  your  way  to  his  fa- 
vor ?  but.  What  can  you  do  as  the  recipient 
of  his  favor  ?  Christ  in  us  is  the  hope  of 
our  glory. 

This  is  the  foundation,  the  heart,  the 
life  of  our  life.  He  is  still  here,  and  all 
that  he  says  we  can  do  —  we  can  do  be- 
cause he  can  do  it  in  us  and  for  us.  This 
is  prayer.  It  is  opening  our  heart  to  the 
heart  of  God,  laying  our  hands  in  the 
hand  of  God,  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord,  and  asking  and  receiving  life  !  So 
that  we  can  live  in  poverty  or  in  wealth, 
in  sorrow  or  in  joy,  so  that  we  know  both 
how  to  be  abased  and  how  to  abound,  so 
that  we  also  can  say  as  Paul  said,  "  I  can 
do  all  things  through  him  that  strength- 
eneth  me." 

Thus  far  I  have  been  considering  the 
question.  How  does  Christ  save  us  ?  How 
are  we  to  avail  ourselves  of  this  salvation  : 
this  ideal  of  life,  this  inspiration  to  life  ? 
We  make  a  great  mistake  if  we  sup- 
pose, as  we  often  do,  that  we  are  to 
try  ourselves  to  build  up  our  own  char- 
[  151  ] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

acter.  To  be  saved  is  to  attain  Christlike- 
ness  in  life  and  character,  and  to  do  this 
I  am  to  do  the  work  that  God  gives  me 
to  do,  and  am  to  leave  to  God  the  mak- 
ing of  my  character.  Let  me  illustrate. 
I  am  sick  —  a  little  cold,  nothing  serious, 
as  it  seems  to  me.  I  call  the  doctor,  who 
tells  me  to  go  to  bed,  and  to  bed  I  go. 
He  says,  "  To-night  eat  only  gruel,"  and 
gruel  I  eat,  although  I  would  rather  have 
beef-steak.  If  now  I  begin  to  worry 
about  myself,  if  I  ask,  "  What  do  you 
find  my  pulse  to  be  ?  What  my  temper- 
ature? What  is  the  matter  with  me? 
Am  I  going  to  be  very  sick  ?  "  the  doctor 
will  laugh  at  me,  or  he  will  change  the 
topic,  or  sharply  forbid  the  questioning, 
or  possibly  even  deceive  me.  No  doctor 
wants  a  patient  to  try  to  cure  himself. 
If  a  patient  begins  to  study  his  own 
symptoms,  that  he  may  help  cure  him- 
self, one  of  two  things  happens  :  either  he 
thinks,  "  I  am  not  sick  at  all,"  or  else  he 
thinks,  "I  am  very  sick,"  and  in  either 
case  the  doctor's  difficulties  are  increased. 
Is  the  best  type  of  pupil  in  a  school  the 
[  152] 


'V 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

pupil  who  is  inquiring  what  her  courses 
are  to  be,  what  her  marks  are,  what  kind 
of  scholar  she  is,  and  whether  she  is  doing 
her  work  in  the  best  way  ;  or  the  pupil 
who  takes  the  work  given  her  to  do  and 
does  it  faithfully  and  well,  leaving  the 
shaping  of  the  curriculum  and  the  forma- 
tion of  the  courses  and  the  general  work- 
ing out  of  results  to  her  teacher  ?  Which 
is  the  kind  of  pupil  of  whom  it  is  easiest 
to  make  a  scholar  ? 

What  I  understand  Christ  to  say  to  us 
is  this  :  "  Do  not  trouble  yourself  about 
yourself.  Leave  yourself  to  me.  I  will 
take  care  of  you  ;  do  you  simply  take  care 
of  your  duty.  Do  you  say  to  me,  I  am 
very  vain  ?  I  will  carry  you  through  ex- 
perience to  take  the  vanity  out  of  you. 
Do  you  say,  I  am  very  selfish  ?  Seek  for 
the  opportunity  to  render  service,  render 
the  service,  but  leave  me  to  carry  you 
through  experiences  that  will  take  the 
selfishness  out  of  you.  If  you  are  selfish 
I  will  put  another's  burden  on  you  and 
make  you  bear  it,  and  in  the  bearing  of 
another's  burden  you  will  learn  unselfish- 

[  153] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

ness."  I  am  not  to  set  myself  to  make 
a  better  man  of  myself.  My  work  is  to 
be  done  without  regard  to  myself,  for  the 
sake  of  loyalty  to  Christ.  One  of  the 
most  common  and  serious  obstacles  to 
salvation,  that  is,  to  the  natural  and 
healthful  development  of  Christlikeness  of 
character,  is  the  pernicious  habit  of  self- 
examination.  The  very  passages  often 
quoted  from  the  Bible  in  support  of  this 
habit  do  really  forbid  it.  "  Search  me,  O 
Lord,  and  know  my  heart,  try  me  and 
know  my  thoughts,  look  well  if  there  be 
any  wicked  way  in  me,  and  lead  me  in  the 
way  everlasting."  What  does  that  mean? 
Does  it  counsel  me  to  search  my  own 
heart  and  see  if  there  be  any  wicked  way 
in  me,  and  then  the  Lord  will  lead  me 
in  the  way  everlasting  ?  No.  I  do  not 
know  myself  and  cannot  comprehend  my- 
self, and  cannot  search  myself.  If  I  come 
in  the  spirit  of  this  text,  I  shall  say  to 
him,  "  Do  you  search  me,  do  you  try  me, 
do  you  see  if  there  be  any  wicked  way  in 
me.  I  want  you  to  know  it  all.  Then 
put  me  through  such  discipline  in  life  as 
[  154] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

will  make  me  a  better  man.  I  will  go 
where  you  lead,  I  will  do  what  you  tell 
me  to  do,  but  I  will  leave  the  examination 
to  you/'  The  Armenians  have  a  saying, 
"  No  camel  ever  sees  his  own  hump." 
No  one  ever  knows  the  evils  that  are  in 
himself.  I  do  not  want  to  know  the 
evils  that  are  in  me;  they  would  dis- 
hearten me.  But  I  want  God  to  know 
them  all,  and  I  want  to  leave  God  to  cure 
them  all.  If  I  will,  day  by  day,  take 
care  of  my  duty  he  will  take  care  of  my 
character. 

"  With  me/'  says  Paul,  "  it  is  a  very 
small  thing  that  I  should  be  judged  of 
you  or  of  man's  judgment :  yea,  I  judge 
not  mine  own  self.  For  I  know  nothing 
against  myself;  yet  am  I  not  thereby 
justified :  but  he  that  judgeth  me  is  the 
Lord."  ^  If  I  examine  myself  and  con- 
clude as  the  result  of  that  examination 
that  I  have  done  nothing  wrong,  nothing 
that  I  need  be  ashamed  of,  that  does  not 
satisfy  me.  I  do  not  know.  And  if  I 
say,  "  I  am  all  wrong  and  must  be  made 

>  I  Corinthians  iv.  3,  4.      Revised  Version. 

[155] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIHl 

all  over  again/'  that  certainly  does  not 
satisfy  me.  And  neither  result  helps  me 
to  be  better.  So  I  put  it  all  behind  me, 
take  myself  as  I  am,  and  say  to  him, 
"Though  I  am  as  wavering  as  Peter,  as 
ambitious  as  John,  as  dishonest  as  Zac- 
cheus,  as  proud  as  Paul,  as  resolutely 
sceptical  as  Thomas,  I  put  myself  in  your 
hands  just  as  I  am.  If  you  will  tell  me 
what  to  do,  not  to  make  myself  a  good 
man,  —  that  I  am  not  engaged  to  do,  ^ 
but  what  to  do  to  help  other  people, 
what  love  to  other  men  and  women  calls 
on  me  to  do,  I  will  honestly  try  to  do  it, 
and  will  leave  you  to  make  what  you  can 
out  of  such  a  man  as  I  am." 

This  little  contribution  to  spiritual  ex- 
perience would  be  sadly  defective  if  it  did 
not  at  least  recognize  a  truth  which  can- 
not be  here  more  than  merely  recognized: 
the  fact  that  life-giving  involves  sacrifice. 

When  a  young  girl  graduates  from 
college,  and  says,  "  I  am  going  to  teach," 
she  fancies,  notwithstanding  her  own  col- 
lege experience,  that  all  the  pupils  will 
welcome  her  instruction   and  look  upon 

[  156] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

her  as  a  benefactor.  When  the  babe  is 
laid  in  the  mother's  arms,  the  mother, 
notwithstanding  the  experience  of  other 
mothers,  says,  "  This  dear  child  will  repay 
my  love  with  love,  and  my  service  with 
gratitude."  The  great  leader  is  gradually, 
by  no  force  of  his  own,  pushed  up  to  take 
a  position  of  leadership ;  and  he  thinks 
that  the  men  who  follow  will  rejoice  and 
applaud  and  thank  him  for  his  leader- 
ship. But  when  the  teacher  goes  to  her 
school-room  she  finds  her  scholars  resist- 
ing her  influence ;  when  the  mother  sees 
her  child  growing  up  from  the  nursery 
into  the  school,  she  finds  herself  called 
some  day  by  the  little  boy  "the  old 
woman,"  and  her  own  love  ill  paid  in  in- 
gratitude and  carelessness;  the  leader  is 
stoned  and  abused  by  the  very  men  who 
follow  him,  and  do  not  know  that  they 
are  following  him. 

It  costs  something  to  give  life.  And 
the  great  God  above  us  — it  has  cost  him 
something  to  give  his  life.  It  has  cost 
him  his  Son  ;  or,  if  we  transfer  the  figure, 
it  has  cost  the  Son  the  crown  of  thorns 

[  157] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

and  the  cross  and  all  the  Passion  to  give 
himself.  He  is  the  example  —  showing 
what  we  may  be ;  he  is  hope  —  inspiring 
us  with  the  ambition  to  be;  he  is  still 
with  us,  pouring  his  life  unto  us ;  he  is 
the  great  sufferer  and  the  great  self-sacri- 
ficer  —  pouring  out  his  life-blood  that  he 
may  give  his  life-blood  to  us. 

There  are  those  who  are  satisfied  with 
their  present  life,  who  are  content  with  the 
life  they  have  lived,  and  with  the  life  they 
are  living,  and  with  the  character  they 
have  attained;  for  such  the  Gospel  has  no 
message.  But  for  those  who  are  not  sat- 
isfied with  the  life  that  they  have  lived, 
who  are  not  satisfied  with  the  character 
they  have  attained,  who  want  to  be  better 
than  they  are,  more  than  they  are,  larger 
than  they  are,  richer  in  character  than  they 
are ;  for  those  who  see  this  life  of  Christ 
and  say,  "I  wish  1  had  the  power  to  live 
that  kind  of  life  and  be  that  kind  of 
man,"  for  those  the  message  of  the  Gos- 
pel is :  The  Christ  who  has  shown  you 
the  pattern  inspires  you  with  the  hope, 
pours  into  you  the  life,  and,  still  crowned 

[  158] 


GOD    A    SAVIOUR    FROM    SIN 

with  thorns,  waits  for  the  time  when  he 
shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  and  be 
satisfied,  because  you  have  awakened  in 
his  likeness,  and  see  him  as  he  is,  because 
you  are  like  him.  Then,  but  not  till 
then,  shall  we  know  what  salvation  really 
means. 


[  '59] 


''™*    lOANDEPT. 

■■  ..V     TE1.NO.642-3A0S 


,,^SIltr^?rT^I^^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
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